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Military green
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The landscape of Ar Ramadi, Iraq, wasn’t quite as green as Rob Adams would have liked.
Not that he expected many similarities between the greens at Ponds of Battle Creek, the Maplewood, Minn.-based golf course where he works as superintendent, and Ar Ramadi, the war-torn location where he served for a year as a captain in the U.S. Army.
But it was one of the things he missed the most during his service from July 2005 to June of this year.
“Getting up early in the morning, getting here before the sun rises and being on the golf course when the sun comes up with the freshly cut grass, I missed that,” says Adams, a nine-year GCSAA member.
The call
Adams, who initially enlisted in the National Guard in 1989 and served
in the Minnesota National Guard for 13 years before becoming an officer
in 1994, received word in February 2005 that he was being called up out
of Individual Ready Reserve to serve in Iraq.
Three months later, he headed off to begin stateside training at Fort Leon ard Wood in Missouri and advanced training at Camp Shelby in Mississippi.
Selected to fill his shoes at the Ramsey County-owned course during Adams’ sabbatical was Charlie Miller, who Adams said received little instruction.
“He stepped in and did a great job helping me maintain the course,” Adams says. “I didn’t really stay in touch with him while I was gone. Work was the last thing on my mind.”
For his first five months in Iraq, Adams monitored soldiers’ radio activity and reported from a relatively secure location inside the forward operating base.
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In this post, he worked 12-hour days, something he said he wouldn’t usually mind if he had been working at the course and going home at the end of the day.
A fellow superintendent sent Adams abroad with a pingpong paddle, which he used to occupy the little free time he had.
“Once a week, we’d do some sort of activity, something fun to get your mind off of what’s going on,” Adams says.
He also mused about building a driving range in dubious territory.
“I’m trying to get a driving range built here, but there is still the concern of sniper fire and being hit by mortars while collecting balls,” he wrote Oct. 9, 2005, in a series of e-mails published in Hole Notes, the publication of the Minnesota GCSA. “I figure with a little chicken wire and duct tape, I can rig a ball retriever up to a tank. There are a few people over here that actually brought their golf clubs and balls. Tee times are pretty wide open. The course has numerous holes from one bomb crater to another. Carts are free with the round and come equipped with some sort of machine gun… a common complaint is that the fairways don’t get watered enough and the greens are slow. Where have I heard that before? I still wish I was home working on the course. I’m having green grass withdrawals.”
To stave off his greens addiction, Adams kept a photograph of grass on his computer. The photo was obtained from a fellow soldier who, on a patrol in the middle of Ar Ramadi, jumped over a fence and landed in a grassy back yard of a resident. The rare site was captured on film for Adams’ enjoyment.
“There’s not a lot of grass over there,” he says.
Company commander
In November 2005, Adams took on more responsibilities as company commander.
He oversaw 95 soldiers and patrolled outside of the base in Ar Ramadi.
In this supervisory role, he noticed at least one similarity between his job on duty and on the course.
“They’re both management positions,” he says. “One has more consequences than the other. If someone scalps the grass, you’ll live. A lot more detail goes into the planning over there, and you need to be able to adapt so much more.”
He did take the time to enjoy the desert scenery Ar Ramadi had to offer during its quiet moments.
“Some of the views were quite beautiful, but then your day started going,” Adams says. “When it was quiet for the brief moments before sunrise, it was nice.”
Though he never encountered others in the turfgrass industry during his tour, his occupation earned him respect among other soldiers.
“When I said I was a golf course superintendent, just about everybody said, ‘Oh, that’s a great job,’” Adams says. “They were all envious.”
Since his return to the United States and to the greens at Ponds at Battle Creek, Adams has adopted a new outlook.
“You don’t worry about the minute details very much,” he said. “You don’t sweat the small stuff and are grateful for everything you do have. We have so much more than the people there, and we take it for granted.
“For me, it’s like coming back and starting over. You see a lot of things on the course that you want to do, and you like the beauty of the whole course. It’s nice to be able to come to work and see that every day.”
| 10 Questions with Rob Adams | |
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1. Thing you missed most about the
United States? Family and friends.
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8.
How often do people try to mimic the Minnesotan accent when you tell
them where you’re from? The guys I was with (in Iraq)
were from Rhode Island. I thought they had a huge accent, and they
thought I had an accent. When I was over there, daily. Here, a couple
times a week. 9. What will you never take for granted? Family. 10. Who would win in an arm-wrestling match — Jesse Ventura or Arnold Schwarzenegger? Both of their big heads would get in the way. But, I’d probably say Schwarzenegger. |
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