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FOXBORO - Standing in retired Lt. Col. Mike Davison's study in his Cocasset Street home, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the history.

Not of the quiet, idyllic view of the backyard pond he fished and played in as a boy, or the numerous pictures of him with people such as Donald Rumsfeld, Gen. Tommy Franks and Colin Powell, or even the bookcase full of trophy balls signed by Boston Red Sox players.

What is most noticeable standing in the history-laden room are the medals, degrees and awards and what they represent: Twenty years of military service that has taken him from Massachusetts to Moldova, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The Air Force officer and Foxboro resident in May at age 43, decided to call time on a career that has taken him around the world.

Growing up in Mansfield and around the same Foxboro home his mother grew up in, Davison is the ideal "local boy makes good" story come to life. Enlisting in the Air Force in 1988, he achieved his dream of becoming a test pilot quickly, served at home and abroad, bought the Cocasset Street house from his grandparents, Frank and Agnes VanDenBerghe, and retired to spend time with his wife, Amy, and 3-month-old son, Harry.

"I loved every minute of my Air Force career," Davison said. "I had a phenomenal career. I sound like a recruiting poster. I got to fly jets, I got to steal airplanes. It was a great adventure."

That adventure began two decades ago when Davison, after receiving a commission at the University of Oklahoma and working more than a year building ballistic missiles, was accepted to the test pilot program at the Air Force Institute of Technology.

"I wanted to do test flying so bad I could taste it," Davison said. "And what surprised me was that I got it very, very quickly."

At the Air Force Test Pilot School he studied and flew almost 30 different types of aircraft with his classmates, many of whom went on to careers as officers, pilots, engineers and astronauts.

After graduating, Davison went to the Air and Space Intelligence Center and worked on reverse engineering foreign threat fighter aircraft brought to him.

Soon afterward he became the air attache for the United States in Uzbekistan, a position he held through the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"It was a great tour, but I never expected them to start a war in my back yard," Davison reflected of his time in Uzbekistan, which shares a border of more than 100 miles with Afghanistan, where the terrorists suspected of plotting the 9/11 attacks were hiding.

Davison, knowing Uzbekistan was the likely place for a temporary air base for strikes on Afghanistan, began surveying the airfields around the country on his own initiative.

After helping establish a U.S. presence in Uzbekistan, he was then sent to scout Taliban positions in Afghanistan for possible air strikes. "I hooked up with my Uzbek counterparts," Davison recalled. "And they looked at me and said, "You know, dressed (in U.S. military gear), you're going to get shot."

Davison donned the uniform of an Uzbek major and accomplished his mission, providing information that ultimately assisted in establishing a forward base in Afghani territory. The Uzbek uniform he wore that day now is at the U.S. Air Force Museum in Ohio.

He also helped oversee flight operations during the war, arranging for life-saving emergency transport on a number of occasions.

One such occasion involved Davison finding a C-130 transport plane to transport a young civilian, within a day of dying of a gall bladder attack, to modern medical facilities at base where surgery could be performed.

It's not the stuff of movies, Davison admits, but all just part of the job - albeit a very special part for him.

Staring pensively out his dining room window overlooking his pond, Davison reflects on those "little vignettes" during his time in the Air Force.

He may no longer steal planes or fly jets, but moving on to life as civilian and father, he's beginning a new adventure all the same.