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CU-Boulder grad David Knutzen keeps technology running in Iraq: 24-year-old lieutenant deployed less than a year after finishing ROTC program
May 01, 2010 (Daily Camera - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
CAMP ADDER, Iraq -- David Knutzen is a warrior with a keyboard.
As an Air Force communications officer in southern Iraq, it's his job to make sure the computers, radios, spy planes and airfield control tower used in the war are working properly.
"Every day I'm trying to figure out some type of problem," said the University of Colorado grad. "I haven't even been in the Air Force for a year, and it's been a little like drinking from a fire hose. But I've learned a lot."
Knutzen had the goal of serving in Iraq ever since he decided to enroll in the Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps program at CU. To him, it was the ultimate opportunity to use the training he received in Boulder.
"It would have been disappointing to spend your time training for something and not get to do it for real," he said. "It would be like spending all your time in the batting cages and not getting to play in the game."
Knutzen came to Iraq on Nov. 30 and plans to finish his six-month deployment in June.
The 24-year-old second lieutenant is stationed at Camp Adder, a former Iraqi air base built four decades ago. The "Ali Base" served as the busiest military airfield during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
The Air Force bombed the base during the 1991 Operation Desert Storm and again in 2003. Huge blast craters still there show the power of 500-pound bombs. But many old masonry buildings remain and are currently used as offices by U.S. forces.
In fact, Knutzen's desk -- located in a corner
office with a window blocked by sandbags and a blast wall -- is in the same spot where Iraqis once worked.
"They were here, and now I'm here," he said, sitting at his desk with a 9mm pistol strapped next to his armpit. "It's cool. This building has seen a lot of history."
'Hippieville, USA'
Growing up in Georgia, Knutzen's family would take annual ski trips to Winter Park. It was his love of the mountains and Mary Jane moguls that led Knutzen to come to CU.
There were other motivations for leaving the South.
"It's humid, there's mosquitoes and the girls aren't very pretty," he said. "And I can't ski. So I said, 'I'm going to Colorado.' CU accepted me, and I didn't apply anywhere else."
Unlike others in his class, the computer science major loved to get outside. He'd hike around the Flatirons and -- when he wanted to "have some redneck fun in Lefthand Canyon" -- he'd line up his old computer monitors and have at them with his rifle.
He embraced the Boulder lifestyle -- even if his political views didn't align with the residents of what he described as "Hippieville, USA." When he'd wear his Air Force uniform around town, people would sometimes yell at him and criticize "your war."
But those objections brought members of CU's Air Force Detachment 105 closer together, he said.
"There's a sense of unity when you get all that adversity on campus," Knutzen said. "I feel like we need a secret handshake for those of us who have more of a conservative bent."
After graduating from CU, Knutzen received several months of in-depth communications training at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss. He learned how to wage the war of the future.
It's called cyber-warfare, and its goal is to disrupt enemy communications just as the bombs rain down during an invasion. For example, Air Force specialists might hack into the enemy's computers and steal some information or shut down its e-mail. Or they might jam a power plant's computers, knocking out electricity for communications networks.
"It's super-geeky, but it works," Knutzen said.
Sacrifice and success
Back in Iraq, though, he's had no need for his cyber-warfare skills since major combat operations have long since ended.
Now he supports the Air Force 407th Air Expeditionary Group's main mission in southern Iraq -- ISR, which stands for intelligence, surveillance and recognizance. For Knutzen, that means overseeing 14 airmen who fix radios, controls for Predator drone spy planes and other communications equipment.
If this technology fails, it means the military can't listen in on insurgents' phone conversations or track their whereabouts from the sky.
Knutzen isn't thrilled with the desk job, but he finds satisfaction in being a leader and playing a role in the larger war.
"Unfortunately when you join the military, you're subject to the needs of the Air Force," he said. "And this is what rolled down for me. Later on, there will be opportunities for me to get my boots muddy and shoot people in the face and have fun doing that."
For now, Knutzen said his job sometimes feels like the movie "Groundhog Day," where the days repeat themselves over and over again.
"You wake up, go to work, go to sleep and do it again," he said. "There's not much to do here, so you get a lot of work done. You can only go to the gym so much."
Knutzen usually swings by the military dining facility for breakfast, then works from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. six days a week. He tries to take an afternoon break to get a CrossFit strength and conditioning workout in at the Air Force's gym.
"I have the athletic talent of a 5-year-old girl, but I work my ass off," said Knutzen, who has a buzz cut, mustache and a flair for profanity.
Knutzen misses Colorado -- the skiing, Fat Tire beer, the beautiful women.
"I haven't seen a woman who hasn't been in a uniform or a burka since I came here," he said.
But these are sacrifices he makes proudly. He sees his service as a means to a more promising end.
"How do I measure my success as Lt. Knutzen? I'm going to do my job so the Air Force can go home," he said. "That enables us to shed more responsibility to the Iraqi military, which will enable them to wage their own battles and safeguard their own citizens. And that enables America to fulfill its goal of having a stable democracy here.
"I have a very small role in that big picture, but I'm proud to play my part."
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http://www.thedailycamera.com./ Copyright (c) 2010, Daily Camera, Boulder, Colo.
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