North Dakota Air National Guard Tech. Sgt. Michael Bullen was born in Minot at the old Air Force hospital, which was located where Quentin N. Burdick Job Corps Center is now. His father was active-duty Air Force at the time. After a series of stops along the way, he moved back to the city at the beginning of this year to work as the area’s recruiter for the North Dakota Air National Guard.

“Growing up here, you compete in sports, and you play with everyone,” Bullen said. “It’s been 12 years since I’ve been back, so a lot of those people are teachers now. I’m going to Bishop Ryan, and Chase Lee’s their principal. We used to wrestle against each other in high school. I didn’t have that in Fargo, so that part’s really cool.”

Bullen lived in Minot until the fourth grade and attended Sunnyside Elementary and Burlington Elementary. Returning during his freshmen year of high school, Bullen graduated from Des Lacs-Burlington. He would then join the Air Force as an active-duty member, where he would serve for four years in Georgia.

When his term was up, he moved to Fargo and joined the Air Guard where he was a member of security forces and then transitioned into recruiting in 2020. He returned to Minot at the beginning of the year, and covers about a 30-mile radius around Minot. He said he goes as far west as Williston and as far east as Devil’s Lake.

“I love recruiting. What I loved about security forces was the fact that you’re kind of the face of the base in a sense. As people come in, you’re the first person they see every morning. For me personally, I would try to keep that energy high,” he said. “Recruiting is like that, but on a totally different level where you’re out in the public. I get to do school visits, sporting events, stuff like that, so it’s pretty cool.”

For Bullen, recruiting is less about trying to pressure someone into joining the Air Guard and more about presenting the option to them, so they can make the best decision for themselves.

“There’s people that want to do different things. Most individuals that I talk to might have a meeting with me on Monday, and then they’re meeting with an Army Guard recruiter on Tuesday,” he said. “The same thing with the Air Force. There’s people that come in and their driving factors, what motivates them, is going somewhere else. If the idea of living in Japan is something that motivates you, I can’t offer that to you, but the Air Force can.”

He said he carries that same mentality into his recruiting at schools and doesn’t try to pressure people into signing up right away.

“I’m not an aggressive person. I really look at it as more of an awareness thing,” he said. “It’s more about just informing people. I think it’s important because when I was a junior and senior, I knew that I wanted to serve in the military and my driving force was education. I didn’t know the Air National Guard existed at that time, so I went active-duty Air Force. When you’re active duty and you’re working full time, the opportunity to be a full-time student isn’t there.”

The Air Guard requires members to attend one weekend of drill a month and two weeks of active-duty training each year. Bullen said that this allows members the ability to attend college or have a job outside of their service.