JULY 8, 2025 – Idaho native O. Paul Mortensen had ambitions to join the FBI as a special agent. With a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement in hand in 1973, he visited the FBI’s Salt Lake City division office in Utah to learn what the bureau required.
An FBI special agent applicant coordinator informed Mortensen that he’d need a minimum of three years of full-time work experience in a supervisory capacity, in addition to having his bachelor’s degree, before being eligible to apply and test for acceptance into the FBI Academy.
Having watched the 1949 John Wayne movie “Sands of Iwo Jima” as a young farm boy, about Marines fighting that World War II battle, he was inspired to satisfy the bureau’s work requirement as a Marine Corps officer.
After rigorous training at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1974. His two military occupational specialties were air support control officer and air traffic control officer.
It took Mortensen longer than three years for the FBI to hire him, so for nearly nine years, he served in many stateside and overseas locations in the Marine Corps.
He returned to Quantico for training in 1983, where the FBI Academy is located. That training was also very rigorous, he said, but the Marine Corps’ can-do attitude inspired him to graduate successfully.
During his 22 years of FBI service, Mortensen served as a street agent in three of the bureau’s then-57 divisions or field offices. He also served two years in Denver, 12 years in Baltimore and eight years in Salt Lake City, as well as at resident agencies in Casper, Wyoming, and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
He recounted many harrowing experiences while serving on the FBI’s first Safe Streets Violent Crime Task Force in the Baltimore division, “working with brave task force partners to dismantle violent inner-city drug organizations and taking illicit drugs and guns off those dangerous streets.”
Mortensen also served on squads investigating various matters, including foreign counterintelligence, organized crime, white-collar crime, bank fraud, bank robbery, health care fraud and felonies on Native American reservations.
In 2005, Mortensen retired from the FBI in Idaho after a career spent working the streets.
One of the benefits of federal service is the ability to combine time served in the military with civilian federal service for increased retirement benefits, he said, noting he combined his nine years with those worked in the FBI.
Looking back on his career, Mortensen said that he’d highly recommend anyone considering a career in law enforcement or any other vocation to first get some military experience.
A lot of organizations, not just law enforcement, hire veterans because of their professionalism, leadership skills and work ethic, he said, adding that another advantage to military service are the education benefits, such as tuition assistance and the GI Bill, the latter of which he used to earn a master’s degree in criminal justice.
A personal benefit of service, Mortensen said, was meeting the woman who would become his wife, Stephanie. The couple met while he was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in 1978, and they recently celebrated their 47th wedding anniversary.
The Marine Corps motto is Semper Fidelis, which is Latin for always faithful. The FBI’s motto of fidelity, bravery, integrity is also powerful, Mortensen said, adding that both mottos have guided his entire life.
By David Vergun, DOD News