How Does a Secret Service Agent Spend a Workday?

Almost Superman

A Secret Service agent is a combination of a police officer, a private detective, bodyguard, electronics and computer master, a small arms expert, a sharpshooter and a crowd control specialist. He can read people's intentions from their body language and facial expressions. She must be constantly vigilant and watching for the unexpected, since protection of literally the most important people in the world is her daily job. Every work day is different, as the schedule of the person he is assigned to guard is also the agent's schedule.

Other Types of Agents

There are also Secret Service Agents who have a more regular workday, in that they counteract such things as identity theft, money counterfeiting, major fraud schemes and scams targeting individuals and governments. But most people want to be in the division that makes history guarding leaders.

Bravest and Best

A Secret Service Agent vows to put her life on the line should one of the people who's being protected is threatened, whether by a crazed person trying to kill someone with whom they disagree politically, a natural disaster like an earthquake or tornado or terrorist activity. Agents are carefully selected from hundreds of applicants. Most of them have been the very best students at law enforcement academies and are sometimes recruited from the FBI or Special Services units of the military, like the Navy SEALS. An agent must be in superb physical condition and have no eyesight or hearing difficulties, with no drug use or record of law-breaking. An agent must be brave, smart and able to change plans and make decisions instantly.

Ordinary Days--Not

While everyone generally thinks of the Secret Service agents seen standing behind or in front of the President of the United States, there are many more agents whose job it is to blend in with the people in the crowd watching an event or parade. The families of the president and vice-president must also be protected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which may entail an agent going to classes and student activities, being present at high school dances or being in the background at college sporting events. Agents go shopping when the family members do, with them for doctors' visits and on vacations. And they must also furnish the same vigilance and protection to rulers of other nations and their families when they're visiting in the United States on a diplomatic tour or pleasure trip.

Suitcases Always Packed

Agents travel around the world, around the United States and around the block to guard the people assigned to their care. Secret Service agents are never really off-duty, but they love their careers, and most of them stay in their profession for many years.

Resources

• The history of the Secret Service
• Wikipedia shows differences between the Secret Service divisions