Network Analyst Has Military Background

What was supposed to last as long as a regular eight hour workday ended up keeping East’s network analyst Ben Eukel awake for 40 hours straight. Attack after attack rolled in, preventing Eukel and his team from unloading the trucks that stored essential equipment for them to communicate with the home base. When they finally were able to move the last piece of equipment off the trucks, the set up began. Rather than the usual ten minutes, it took two hours for the team to connect to the satellite. It started raining as Eukel was laying cable, one of the most strenuous jobs when setting up a mobile communications system. There was some confusion and Eukel kept working as other soldiers arrived and headed to their beds. Finally, the exercise at Fort Dix in New Jersey ended for Eukel, but as there wasn’t a tent available, he laid down in the grass using his rucksack as a pillow.

Luckily for Eukel, the exercise made him feel closer to real combat than he ever actually was. For six years, Eukel worked as a satellite communications technician for the Air Force in support of special operation forces such as the Army Rangers, Marine Recon and CIA. It was Eukel’s job to set up the equipment that allowed those fighting on the ground to have real-time communication with the Pentagon and CIA headquarters. Eukel spent most of his six years at Hurlburt Field Air Force Base, but was deployed overseas twice: once to Kuwait from March-Aug. 2003 and once to Afghanistan from April-June 2004. After serving in Afghanistan, Eukel was promoted to second-in-command of the division at Hurlburt that oversaw the maintenance of the communication systems.

Eukel was never in a combat situation. Instead, his experience was different than what many might imagine when he brings up working for special-ops. Most of Eukel’s days consisted of him sitting in the tent they called “base” in an air-conditioned room for 12 hours, seven days a week. The team was required to check in with the satellite controllers every eight hours to confirm that the dish was still up and running. Between confirmation calls, Eukel had a front row seat to what he compares to a video game. The network Eukel’s team installed at the base could directly interface with special-ops on the ground as well as any pilots or Predators being used in the mission.

“That was basically it,” Eukel said. “You just sit in the tent making phone calls.  Because once you’re set up, you’re set up until it’s time to move on.”

On base, the rules special-ops follow are different than what regular Army and Air Force personnel are subjected to. Special-ops aren’t required to wear a hat when outside and saluting officers is optional. One of the most useful differences, Eukel said, was not being forced to wear the standard Air Force uniform.

“Our uniform was khaki or black shorts and a black or brown T-shirt,” Eukel said. “[It was] really nice because it’s obviously very hot over there.”

Eukel always pushed the limits during his time in the Air Force. Senior airman Chris Ellcessor, Eukel’s friend while at Hurlburt, remembers he’d often come back from physical training (PT) in the morning to find Eukel asleep on the floor. Even so, Ellcessor said Eukel always passed his PT tests. Another time, Ellcessor recalls, Eukel thought the office was getting a little too boring and brought in an emulator that allowed original Nintendo games to be played on the government PCs at the base.

Pushing the limits of Air Force rules wasn’t always a matter of fun and games with Eukel. He is Jewish and even studied under the local rabbi at Hurlburt to become a rabbi himself, though he never completed his studies. Eukel wore a yarmulke throughout his time in the Air Force not only because of his religious beliefs, but also because he felt he needed some way to make himself unique.

“I never just pictured myself as another cog in the wheel and you can only distinguish yourself so much by outstanding service or being good at your job so sometimes you just need a gimmick to get noticed,” Eukel said.

When Eukel turned 10 he got his first computer — a “blazing” 66 mgHz Pentium 1 that he claims “basically nothing at all” could be done on. That painstakingly slow machine was where his interest in computers began and he soon started making his own improvements.

“If [a computer] starts running slow, I wanted to just see what was inside,” Eukel said. “I would tear it down and put it back together and eventually you start doing it for your friends, your friend’s parents, so by the time I graduated high school, I had a pretty good background in computer repair and optimizations.”

After leaving the service and returning to Kansas in Dec. 2007, Eukel’s mother, Esther DeVault who teaches at Prairie Elementary, told him about an IT opening at East. Eukel applied and in Jan. 2008 he joined the district as a rotating elementary network analyst before moving to East that April.

Today, Eukel’s job consists of maintaining software and hardware on all the computers, printers and laptops in the building. He sees his position as a customer service role because it’s his job to make sure teachers aren’t inhibited by technology available to them, but rather helping teachers use it to enhance their lesson plans.

He often looks back fondly on his days in the Air Force and sometimes thinks about where he would be if he stuck with that career path. This year Eukel would have been halfway through his 20 years to gain full military retirement benefits, but he’s currently taking online courses to get a college degree in network design and management so he can fulfill his dream of becoming an information technology consultant.