Near the beginning of his career, Staley served the U.S. Air Force as an internist treating active duty and retired troops over a number of deployments, including a tour in Balad, Iraq, in 2006 as a combat hospitalist. Like a lot of physicians in the U.S., a number of locum tenens agencies approached Staley and ultimately convinced him to use his earned leave to provide coverage for them as a hospitalist in rural Midwestern towns.