In Season 4 , it is stated that Booth has been in the FBI for twelve years , which implies that he would have joined the Bureau around 1996 . However , this contradicts his statements in Season 6 about going AWOL to be present at the birth of his son , Parker ( Parker was four when the show premiered in 2005 ) and in season 10 when he recounts to Wendell Bray of watching his men getting shot and killed by the Taliban during a mission in Ghazni , Afghanistan ( American troops did not enter Afghanistan until after the attacks on September 11 , 2001 ) . A possible realistic explanation would be that Booth remained in the Army as a reservist
attacks on September 11 , 2001
September 11 attacks
Seeley Booth