America at War

High-tech hookup to Afghanistan lets D-M warrior meet his new son

Only hours after escaping a car bomb threat in Afghanistan, Select Staff Sgt. Patrick Blevins fell in love at first sight with his just-born baby boy, awake and gurgling, in real time at Tucson Medical Center. Swaddled in baby camouflage, hours-old Blake Ashton Blevins had no idea that was his daddy watching and loving and cooing at him on New Year's Day from a war zone on the other side of the world. But Blevins' wife, Kristy, sure did, as she held her unusually beautiful newborn up to the webcam for soldier-daddy Patrick to see. It was an unforgettable family moment made possible by a gaggle of gadgetry assembled in a hospital room by teams of techies from TMC and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base determined to make it happen. "He told me the guys warned him new babies are not very cute, and not to be disappointed. But he said they were wrong about Blake - that he's just the cutest thing he's ever seen," said Kristy Blevins, 26, as she instant-messaged with her husband throughout the live video encounter from Tucson to Afghanistan. "He said he really wants to come home, more than ever, and told me to give Blake his love through me until he does." This New Year's Day special-broadcast-live-from-TMC likely would have proved impossible had the hospital not already been gearing up to bring high-speed Internet access to patient rooms - a massive project due for completion by late spring. So, when Kristy Blevins first asked several weeks ago if she could do a full-motion, real-time video feed to her husband, now serving with the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan - hopefully within minutes after her baby's birth - TMC said, "We think so." "Luckily, the cabling was already installed, so we figured we could do it," said TMC spokeswoman Julia Strange. "So we went to work on the infrastructure to support it, deploying our fiber optics network. "Because this request was such a special one, we put this room together ahead of the rest of the hospital, and it worked." With TMC wiring up at warp speed, Davis-Monthan pitched in, donating a laptop computer and a webcam to the Blevins family to make the holiday birthday hookup come true. "The Air Force is trying on a regular basis to make sure families stay in touch," said Staff Sgt. Thomas Brown, a Davis-Monthan expert in munitions systems, who helped get the needed technology and equipment to Kristy Blevins. "We get families together through e-mails, and sometimes telephone calls. But this case was a little unique because the hospital got into it and was able to make the live video work." This is not the first time Patrick Blevins, 23, also a munitions expert, has made video contact with his wife since he was deployed to Bagram Air Base - a former Soviet base about an hour north of Kabul - on Nov. 15. During Thanksgiving week, television reporter Geraldo Rivera posed on camera with Blevins at Bagram during a holiday-with-the-troops broadcast for Fox News from Afghanistan. "Most of the guys had flags and USA signs, but Patrick's sign had hearts on it, and it said he loved me and he can't wait to see our son. Geraldo pulled him out of the crowd," said Kristy, a Marana High School graduate who was then seven months pregnant. But this time, as baby Blake came into the world just an hour before midnight on New Year's Eve, the first attempts to show him off to his father failed. Not because of faulty technology, but because soldiers in Afghanistan remain in harm's way. As Blake was being born, a car bomb attempt was made on the Bagram base. "I don't know all the details about what happened, but they managed to stop it," said Kristy. It was not until 6 p.m. Tucson time on New Year's Day - when Blake was 19 hours old - that Patrick got himself safely to the video setup at the Bagram fire station to catch first sight of his first baby. Wearing a tiny camouflage cap and camo pants, Blake was fast asleep during that appearance. But he was awake and mugging for the camera during the second and third shows his father insisted on, in the wee hours of Friday morning, Tucson time. That was no surprise to his ecstatic parents. Their baby was always up kicking and moving inside Kristy at such hours in the last months of her pregnancy. "I knew he'd be wide awake then," said his father, who will finally be able to hold Blake in his arms when he returns to Tucson in the spring.