US companies resolute on Iraq mission
Despite the killing of four American workers in Fallujah this week and his own experiences with rocket explosions in Baghdad, Gary Gaumer would go back to Iraq. "I'd do it next week," said Gaumer, a 57-year-old assistant professor at Simmons College in Boston who worked as a consultant in Baghdad in January to help Iraqis redesign their health care system.
Would his family let him return? Probably, Gaumer said, whose profession has drawn him to such other challenging spots as Albania and Armenia. But for those weeks in Baghdad, he said, he was "operating on the edge of permissibility" from his wife and three grown children.
With a heavy military response planned against the insurgency, US officials vowed the Fallujah attacks would not undermine efforts to rebuild war-torn Iraq. Much of the work is being done by private contractors using tens of thousands of American and foreign workers.
Some workers have endured primitive living conditions and small-arms attacks by Iraqi insurgents. Others lived in an armored bubble and avoided travel even when it would help their work. Danger was never far away.
Civilian workers in Iraq are volunteers. Like members of the military, diplomatic corps, and Peace Corps, in which many had previously volunteered, they are attracted by the adventure, the challenge, and the sense of social mission.
Gaumer was in Baghdad as a consultant to Abt Associates Inc. in Cambridge, which has a contract worth as much as $43 million to stabilize and rebuild Iraq's medical system.
"Seldom do you find any situation where you're asked to begin at the beginning," he said.
For some, money is also a motivator, or at least helps compensate for the dangers.
Even contractors who have skirted danger said they had no illusions. "We knew what we were getting into and just went," said Johnny D. Wright, a former Army Patriot missile officer.
Wright led a team of aerospace engineers and contractors from Goodrich Corp.'s Vergennes, Vt., facility on a five-month stint installing systems on Black Hawk helicopters. For Wright and his colleagues, many of whom are also former military personnel, the Iraq assignment was another way to serve their country, which made it easier to endure washing laundry in tubs and put up with a visiting mongoose because it ate the mice in their tents.
Wright said there were constant attacks from small-arms fire, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades on the perimeter of the military compound in Mosul where they were stationed. But he and his colleagues didn't worry much because the attackers' aim "was not that good." Since none of the missiles landed "closer than 100 yards," Wright said, the attacks often faded into the background noise of Black Hawks constantly landing and taking off.
Occasionally life in Iraq looked like a scene out of the television war sitcom "M*A*S*H." Wright's tent facilities in Mosul had a lousy shower, but the military compound at the Baghdad airport had an outdoor shower with hot water. During a visit to Baghdad, Wright was so desperate for a good rinse that he wouldn't let an attack on the compound stop him. He went off to the shower as small-arms fire broke out on the perimeter and soldiers scrambled for flak jackets and helmets.
"Oh, it was a good shower," Wright, 40, recalled fondly.
More often it was the intensity of the work that provided the greatest distraction for so many civilian employees. Going 18 hours a day, they didn't have the time to "obsess" about safety, as Gaumer put it. Work was a relief, but more important was the draw for them to be there in the first place.
Certainly, some contractors wanted out.
"There were those who weren't dealing with the situation well, and it was reflected in their work and we had to send them home," Wright said. Those who stayed said they tried not to think whether an attack was around the corner. "If you let yourself get scared, you'd always be looking over your shoulder and get distracted and not get anything done," said Lou Madison, a former Marine and now a product service representative for Goodrich who worked with Wright in Mosul.
"So you'd pour yourself into work and shut out what's happening," Madison said.
But there was no getting away from the fact that Iraq is too dangerous for civilian workers to roam freely. When civilians did what little travel that was allowed, it was usually in armored cars with armed guards.
"We know how to take a low-profile position," said Robert Band, Perini's president. Band acknowledged Iraq is "the most dangerous place we've ever worked," but he said the company is comfortable with the security measures it has taken.
"I frankly didn't think of it as dangerous, just constrained," Gaumer said.
At 6 feet tall, he would be a conspicuous sight on the streets of Baghdad, so he took few trips on his own. Female colleagues would drape shawls over their heads to lessen the chances that they would be identified. Often, Gaumer and his colleagues would forgo a trip to a clinic or health care site.
One mixed blessing of the war damage in Iraq was that the country's nearly useless telephone network made it difficult to stay in touch with family back home. Some workers had satellite phones, which they used sparingly because of emotional as well as security reasons.
"We never told our families how much stuff was really happening. We didn't want to worry them," Wright said.
He already knows he will have a chance to go back to Iraq soon. His wife would probably not object, but if she were set against it, then he might not return, he said.
Indeed, civilian workers said friends and family back home were often more worried about their safety than they were. "I was kind of amazed at the number of people who spoke to me when I returned and said, `Gee, I'm glad to see you back,' " Gaumer said.
Andrew Caffrey can be reached at caffrey@globe.com. 
