Can someone tell me what hardware they're using? OpenBTS traditionally runs on USRP1 but I have a USRP1 at home and the picture doesn't look similar to what I have. It would be nice to run something like OpenBTS without spending ~$1500US.

The military treats people as interchangeable for continuity of operations. The hero role plays nice in the movies but in reality it's bad when the only guy who can perform a critical function isn't available. If you have unique skills and you want to work for them so much then why don't you just go apply to one of the contractors there?