Bosch has unique experience at officer school Published June 7, 2012 By Senior Master Sgt. Joseph Stahl 178th Fighter Wing Public Affairs SPRINGFIELD, Ohio -- 2nd Lt. Marcus Bosch, an intelligence operations specialist with the 178th Fighter Wing, Springfield, Ohio had a unique experience at his Academy of Military Science officer's school in March 2011. Bosch began his active duty military career when he went to basic training Dec. 1993. Three years later, he went palace chase and joined the 178th Fighter Wing in aerospace ground equipment. In 2006 Bosch decided to become a Military Training Instructor. Several factors lead to that decision. "What inspired me was the actual MTI's that I had. They were hard on us when they needed to be hard on us, they also did a lot of mentoring with us which is not always typical," said Bosch. "I've always been involved with youth activities, whether it was coaching soccer or something else, dealing with young people, helping them develop. I just looked at it as a way to pay back and not be the standard typical instructor and do the same thing my instructors did with me, offer that mentoring and try to get kids on a good path to start their career," continued Bosch. With the 178 FW transitioning to new missions, Bosch took advantage of the opportunity to obtain a commission. He was selected for an intelligence operations specialists position and left for AMS March 2011. AMS proved to be a unique experience for Bosch with his MTI background. Since the AMS instructors had everybody's resumes, they all knew of Bosch's background. In fact some of the AMS MTI's worked for and with Bosch as MTI's years prior. Because of his unique background, Bosch received some special attention from his instructors. "My flight commander pulled me aside and told me that you will be put in no leadership role, as a former Senior Master Sgt. You have that leadership experience," said Bosch Because of his background he was first appointed flight drill officer, the wing drill officer, which put him in charge of drill training for the entire wing. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Bosch even had to step into the role of instructor. "We had an unexpected twist. A couple MTI's were sick, one was called back to Lackland, so they were short. So they actually came to me one day because it was a day on their schedule where they had to finish teaching drill, so they asked me to teach drill to several flights," Bosch continued, "so I basically taught them parade and the parade sequence and ceremony and got them ready for parade." "The experience was a little weird for me because my flight commander knew my background. He did his best to be hard on me when he needed to but he had a hard time with it. He actually had a conversation with me one time, by your prior rank and age you are more like a peer," said Bosch. Because he was not permitted to hold any significant leadership positions, his class ranking was effected. He was also very helpful to his classmates in many other areas such as preparing rooms for inspection. Bosch had an overall good experience at AMS, even though it was a unique one.