PCO and Marine McGinitie Recalls Pest Control Duties in Afghanistan

HEDGESVILLE, W.Va. ­­— Over the last two years, father-son duo Jason and Kevin McGinitie have grown Safeguard Pest Pros, a veteran-owned and operated business offering a variety of pest control services.

A month after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 Jason McGinitie joined the U.S. Marines Corps where he was deployed to Iraq in 2003. McGinitie said his unit was one of the first to cross into the country. McGinitie served until 2005 when, while deployed, a vehicle he was in was blown up. McGinitie is featured in Richard S. Lowry’s book “Marines in the Garden of Eden.”

“I got out of the Marines in October of 2005,” McGinitie said. “Shortly after in the early parts of 2006 I started doing pest control.”

He started working at a small "mom and pop" pest control business  named SafeGuard that was later bought by Terminix. In 2008, McGinitie worked for KBR where, through government contracts, he performed pest control in Afghanistan.

“They got a lot of the same stuff we have over here,” McGinitie said. “The spiders, just a lot bigger; a lot of snakes. They would put all of my supplies and materials into a big plastic tote, put me on a helicopter, and send me off to some base somewhere in Afghanistan.”

Depending on the visit and location, McGinitie would stay at the base for around a week, but sometimes for up to a month.

“The biggest function was making sure the chow halls were good,” he said. “It was a lot of fly lights, that kind of stuff.”

McGinitie would take return flights back to the main base to resupply before heading to the next base, with helicopter flights taking place in the cover of night.

“They would drop you off at these bases and you have no clue where you are, because everything is lights out,” he said. “It’s dark. I, more than once, have been in the middle of an Afghan desert tugging along my little tote [having] no idea where I am going.”

For about a year, McGinitie serviced bases in Afghanistan before returning to the states. After his return he was a mail carrier for 15 years, but McGinitie knew he wanted to start his own pest control in business. In 2024, McGinitie started SafeGuard Pest Pros where he now works with his son Kevin.

“[Kevin] still has a fulltime job,” McGinitie said. “He’s off two days a week and he’ll come and help me. He’ll run full routes both of those days which helps me catch up on paperwork. It’s nice because he is [related to] me, so I trust him.”

McGinitie said there have been very few times when he has had to correct his son on aspects of the job, but he has learned quickly and the customers have grown to love him.

“Once [Kevin] figures it out, he is great,” McGinitie said. “The customers love him. I am a nice guy, people like me. People love him. I have that Marine mentality, dry sense of humor sometimes. With him it’s every time I go to a house everybody says ‘Oh we just love your son’”

Check out this video to hear McGinitie talk about what working with his son.

Typical pest problems the McGinities are called for include spiders, ants, cockroaches, bed bugs and yellowjackets, as well as rodents. Jason McGinitie said a favorite part of the job for him is fixing people’s problems.

“You help people,” he said. “You get that yellowjacket job where they are coming through the ceiling, and you are a hero.

He said an important part of the job is being an investigator.

“You have to have a little common sense and you have to investigate,” McGinitie said. “I like that aspect of it. I like getting to a new property not knowing where the problem is coming from and finding it.”

Though SafeGuard Pest Pros is a business, McGinitie said his focus is on helping customers and giving them peace of mind. As they continue to grow and expand their operations, McGinitie knows that they will eventually have to hire more employees, but helping will still be at the forefront of all of their work.

“I want to do it as honest as possible,” he said. “In two years we have been doing well with that.”