AFOSI agent wins WIFLE award

  • Published
  • By Mark Wyatt
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  The commander of the Hanscom-based Office of Special Investigations Detachment 102 was honored in Washington D.C. late last month for, among other things, tackling the particularly insidious threat of green-on-blue attacks in Afghanistan.

Green-on-blue attacks refer to incidents where members of the Afghan military or police force turn on their U.S. or coalition counterparts inside the wire. The results are often mass casualties, broken trust and reduced public confidence in both Afghanistan and the United States.

Special Agent Catherine J. Tobin received the Julie Y. Cross Award in the international category at the Women in Federal Law Enforcement Annual Awards Luncheon in Washington, D.C. Aug. 27 for her tireless efforts to staunch such attacks.

Named in honor of Julie Y. Cross, a Secret Service agent who was the first female law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty on June 4, 1980, the award is presented to two law enforcement officers, one for domestic law enforcement and one for international. The award honors a sworn federal law enforcement officer for an act of exceptional courage or heroism or for an unusual degree of stamina and willingness to go beyond the call of duty, resulting in an extraordinary achievement in the field of law enforcement.

Those are qualities that, during a deployment last year, Tobin demonstrated in support of Operation Enduring Freedom as a Joint Field Office-Afghanistan team leader in Kabul, Afghanistan, said Col. Curtis Riedel, AFOSI Field Investigations Region 1 commander.

"As a Joint Field Office-Afghanistan team leader, Special Agent Tobin led a team running full-spectrum counterintelligence operations in order to find, fix, track and neutralize a multitude of threats to the United States and its coalition partners," said Riedel, who nominated Tobin for the award.

While quoting the Air Force mission directive for OSI, Tobin highlighted proudly that OSI is a "combat-ready military organization that provides the Air Force a wartime capability to conduct, in hostile and uncertain environments, counter-threat operations."

In addition to trying to mitigate the green-on-blue attacks, the Michigan native was responsible for finding those who have escaped justice for earlier attacks.

"Often it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack," Tobin said. "But the end goal, and the motivation, is to have every coalition member return home to their families at the end of their tours."

She went on to say that she took tremendous pride in protecting those at her location so they were able to execute their mission effectively.

Tobin, who considers the deployment as one of the highlights of her career to date, is pleased by what she was able to accomplish during the deployment.

"It's something that I will appreciate for the rest of my life," she said. "It was not easy to do ... it took a great deal of skill and perseverance."

She acknowledged that while deployments are difficult, when you believe in the mission, it's much easier to get through.

"When you are motivated by your work, it makes time away from family and friends easier to endure," she said. "We didn't get many days off, but for me, time in the gym or at the dining facility was time away from my work, time lost because what I was doing was so pressing and urgent."

Upon completion of her successful deployment, Tobin was assigned as the commander of the Hanscom AFB AFOSI detachment.

As commander, Tobin is responsible for personnel assigned to locations around New England, as well as the greater part of New York.

"Our CONUS [Continental United States] mission is to protect the Air Force from domestic threats of all kinds," she said.

Riedel, soon-to-be retired from the Air Force, highlighted her overall sacrifice and willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty.

"She does not shrink from the challenges or hardships associated with the work of a federal law enforcement officer," he said. "Special Agent Tobin's determination to solve complicated investigative problems with limited resources shows through her formidable list of accomplishments."