The Virginian-Pilot February 18, 2007
Sent to Iraq after four months on the job
By Jon W. Glass
SUFFOLK - When nobody else volunteered, Jason Boyer, a 27-year-old computer network engineer with no military experience, said he was willing to go to Iraq.
"I like hard problems," said Boyer, who is lead systems engineer for EchoStorm, a homegrown defense contractor based here.
The company needed somebody to go to Iraq to meet the terms of a contract it won from the Defense Department's Joint Forces Command. When he stepped up, in fall 2005, Boyer had worked only four months for the startup and was one of only about two dozen employees.
His mission: to install a new high-tech warfighting tool that EchoStorm helped develop - a secure Web-based video system that can deliver full-motion video shot from unmanned aerial vehicles to troops in the field. The military is now beginning to use the system for surveillance and to gather information to combat insurgents.
Boyer is working on his third trip to expand the network. He's experienced sweaty 110-degree summer heat and shivered through rainy winter days when desert sand turns into ankle-deep mud.
He seems to take it all in stride, even for someone who gobbles Dramamine to fight air sickness and hates needles - he needed about a dozen shots to ward off such threats as yellow fever and hepatitis.
He matter-of-factly talks about the time a military helicopter he was flying in during his last trip - for four weeks in November and December - apparently came under enemy fire. He saw flares and heard what sounded like countermeasures going off. The soldiers on the chopper with him - somewhere outside Baghdad, near one of the military's forward operating base camps - didn't seem overly concerned.
He said he didn't panic.
"You just don't ask," Boyer said. "There's no benefit. It takes your focus off. You can't worry about it. You eat, sleep and work - that's why you're there."
His wife, Kate, who works in sales for EchoStorm, probably does enough worrying for both of them.
"Don't love it, wouldn't choose it," she said. "I didn't marry a military guy. I guess I just wasn't prepared for it."
When he's traveling, they keep in touch by e-mail, text messaging and short calls he makes on a satellite telephone the company bought for him.
In Iraq, he ha s stayed at the heavily guarded Camp Slayer near the Baghdad airport, living alongside other contractors and soldiers in four-person trailers protected by concrete "blast" walls.
He worked at the "Perfume" Palace, one of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's government buildings. The U.S. military has transformed it into a logistics and operations base for intelligence and weapons-hunting teams, according to GlobalSecurity.org, a Web site that offers information on security and other military topics.
He's also stayed at more primitive forward base camps, living out of large tents and awakening to the sounds of gunfire and explosions. He ha s slept alongside troops pulling 16-hour duty patrols.
The most dangerous part of the work, he said, are the helicopter rides. He has traveled to outlying military camps to install the computer servers needed to operate EchoStorm's video information system. He wears a helmet and body armor like the soldiers who accompany him.
Despite the risks, the work is satisfying, he said.
"It's rewarding to hear people say, 'Your product has helped us,' " Boyer said. "You're in there with them to help them do their job."
© Copyright 2007, The Virginian-Pilot
