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Military defendants like Lantz Nave come along only once every few decades.

When the FBI fingered him in a massive cocaine sting last year, the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base technical sergeant was already retired from military life with a pension in hand.

The Air Force ordered him back to active duty to be court-martialed — an event so rare it has occurred just a handful of times in the service's near 60-year history, a military law expert said. His trial began Wednesday.

"This has only been done two or three times in the last several decades," said Scott Silliman, a former senior Air Force lawyer who is now a law professor at Duke University.

The case is also unusual for some of its other features, such as allegations that undercover FBI informants involved in the sting engaged in misconduct with prostitutes at a Las Vegas hotel and photographed their sexual exploits.

Silliman said calling a service member out of retirement to face charges is done only when alleged crimes are deemed especially disgraceful. The move requires approval at the Pentagon level, in this case likely from the secretary of the Air Force, he said.

The public got a first glimpse of the case when Nave, 40, went on trial at the Tucson air base he retired from in September 2003 after 20 years in uniform.

Prosecutors allege that about six months before he retired, Nave was one of dozens of Southern Arizona service members who wore military fatigues and used government vehicles to run drugs from the Tucson area to Phoenix, Las Vegas and elsewhere.

But Nave also is accused of being more deeply involved in the underworld.

Prosecutors say taped evidence will show Nave boasting to an undercover FBI informant he'd been running drugs for the last 10 years of his military career and had an extensive network of contacts stretching from Tucson to Kansas City, Atlanta and South Carolina.

During the sting, Nave proposed setting up regular cocaine runs to Kansas City, and said anyone who wanted to get involved could earn $18,000 per kilogram for moving the drugs, the government alleges.

Nave, a father of two teens, also is alleged to have told an informant that he had 56 pounds of marijuana at his Tucson home and was willing to sell it for $550 a pound.

Military prosecutor Maj. Jill Thomas said Nave describes himself on tape as "a thoroughbred" in the drug world, someone "who is in it to win it."

Defense lawyer Charles Gittins of Virginia, a former Marine, acknowledged that Nave took part in one drug run from Tucson to Phoenix in February 2003. But that's the extent of his wrongdoing, he said.

Gittins said Nave's comments about past criminal exploits were braggadocio aimed at impressing the man who was paying him, an FBI informant who was posing as a senior member of a Mexican drug cartel.

Nave was one of several defendants who lied about having drug-running experience to get in on the "easy money" the FBI informant offered, the defense lawyer said.

Those who took part were paid $3,000 for every drug run they took part in, plus $2,000 to $5,000 extra for every new person they recruited to join the fold.

The defense maintains that Nave was the victim of FBI entrapment, while the prosecution is painting him as a willing participant.

Before the jury portion of the trial opened, military judge Lt. Col. Nancy Paul heard testimony that the FBI sting went awry in October 2002, when undercover informants working for the agency hired hookers to join them at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.

The men were staying in the hotel's presidential suite during one of the fake drug runs that were part of the sting.

Army Staff Sgt. Derreck Curry, who was convicted in March in the FBI sting and is awaiting sentencing, testified that FBI informants paid prostitutes to have sex with a bodyguard and several other men who later became defendants.

In one incident, a prostitute who was drunk and high on drugs appeared to pass out in the hotel suite, Curry said. At that point, one of the FBI informants joined in on the sexual exploits, performing lewd acts over the face of the motionless woman while someone photographed the scene, he said.

Gittins, Nave's defense attorney, said the FBI investigated the incidents Curry described and substantiated the events.

According to an FBI report disclosed to Nave's legal team, the photos were later destroyed by the informant who posed with the passed-out prostitute, he told the judge. No criminal charges resulted from the Las Vegas misconduct.

The jury in Nave's court-martial will not hear any evidence about the Las Vegas incident because Paul, the military judge, ruled it inadmissible.

The judge said the information was irrelevant to Nave's case because Nave didn't become involved with the FBI sting until five months after the prostitution incident.

Nave is one of 11 D-M airmen to be court-martialed in the sting known as Operation Lively Green.

The other airmen have received prison sentences ranging from eight months to eight years, along with various other penalties such as rank reductions and fines. Most have been kicked out of the Air Force.

Nave's court-martial is expected to continue through Friday.