Nov. 11, 2009
In honor of Veterans Day, WakeForestSports.com visited with Wake Forest head football coach Jim Grobe who recounted his trip to the Middle East over the summer to visit our troops. VIDEO Wake Forest head football coach Jim Grobe was one of six NCAA Division I-A football coaches who made a seven-day trip to visit troops stationed at U.S. military installations in Germany, Turkey, Iraq and Djbouti, Africa back in the late spring. Grobe was joined by Ohio State head coach Jim Tressell, Texas' Mack Brown, UCLA's Rick Neuheisel, Houston Nutt of Ole Miss and Troy Calhoun of the Air Force Academy. In addition, former Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville will also make the trip. The tour launched from McConnell, the home of the 22nd Aerial Refueling Wing. The majority of the air transportation will be handled by a KC-135R, four-engine transcontinental aircraft. The coaches at McConnell Air Force Base near Wichita, Kansas and departed for Ramstein Air Base in Ramstein, Germany. The coaches visited with wounded troops at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. The group spent time in Turkey and at several military bases in Iraq. After a stop at a base in Djibouti, the group returned home in early June. During the trip, the coaches logged more than 25,000 air miles and visited with approximately 20,000 U.S. troops.
"The trip itself was pretty demanding, we did a lot of travel," said Grobe upon his return. "We flew military aircraft everywhere we went. It was good for us because we got to experience what our service men and women do in their traveling. We flew on KC-135s, we flew on C-17s, C-130s. We had an opportunity to have a lot of different experiences. We went to lots of bases, a lot of different hospitals where we visited wounded soldiers. It gave us the chance to feel really good about our men and women in service, the sacrifice that they're making. "I think sometimes as football coaches our families are concerned when we have to go on a weekend recruiting trip," said Grobe. "And we're talking (about) men and women who deploy for some times a year, 18 months or more, that they're away from their families. It was a very rewarding experience and a very humbling experience. It makes you really, really proud of our servicemen and women. They are so patriotic, so committed. This is a volunteer force. These are men and women who volunteered to defend their country. I know with (college football) players, they sometimes feel like putting in 20 hours a week during the season to play football is a lot to ask. (Some) players in the off-season feel like eight hours during the week to train is asking too much. They at times feel like they should be paid above and beyond their scholarship. I'm not talking about our players, but scholarship players across the country. "I can't tell you how many men and women in the armed forces are ROTC people who are basically paying for their education by serving their country," said Grobe. "I wish I could have taken our team. If you look at the sacrifice that our soldiers are making for their country and, in some cases, for their futures as far as education is concerned, playing football is a pretty good gig. It's something that they shouldn't take for granted. I was just so impressed with how committed our troops are and the job that we're doing to try and protect our troops, to keep them safe. You're in harm's way all the time. We spent three days in Iraq and that was eye-opening. "You came away with a great feeling of team," said Grobe." We talk `team' all the time in football and I think a lot of times the best teams win more than the most talented groups. Over there, it's just amazing their commitment to teamwork. The thing that was remarkable to me was when we went to the hospitals and talked to injured soldiers, some were pretty severely wounded. They never talked about themselves, they always talked about their teammates. How disappointed they were to not be with their unit, to not be with their team. They felt like they were letting their teammates down by not being there for them. There were other soldiers who were wounded near the end of their deployment and their biggest disappointment was not being able to go back home with their unit. "It was a great learning experience for me as a coach, not only from a team standpoint but being able to understand what real sacrifice is. It makes you feel real good about our country and the people who serve it." Grobe was especially moved by one particular soldier that he met in Iraq. "One of the things we did at one of the bases, we had a chance to talk to the soldiers whose primary job was bomb disposal, getting rid of ordnance. When they're in Iraq or Afghanistan, they disarm bombs. I was talking to one young guy, he was a college graduate who was doing that. My first thought was `Why would you choose bomb disposal?' I think it's something you have to volunteer for. I don't think it's something where they say `Okay, you're in bomb disposal.' I asked him what led him to do that. He said `Coach, I look forward to doing my job every day. When I go to bed at night, I can't wait to get up the next morning and do my job.' I was just shocked. I couldn't imagine why he would want to do that. He told me that he played high school football but when he got to college, he just wasn't big enough to continue to play. He said `To be honest with you, this is the only thing I've found that gives me the same thrill as playing Friday night high school football.' That's why he choose that career field, because that's the only thing that gets him going every day. "I thought `What a blessing for us, to have guys like that that are willing to do that job.' I thought it was interesting when he said that the only way he feels like Friday nights when he was playing high school football was to be in bomb disposal for America. We're doing a lot of things with robots and there are ways to detonate those things without having to get too close to them. But we still pick the paper up and see that we're losing guys to roadside bombs. But because of his commitment and the commitment of a large number of soldiers that are involved in that detail, things have gotten a lot safer. We're just so blessed to have people who not only are into serving the military but volunteer for some pretty dangerous jobs to help save other people's lives. It was just amazing to find people who are totally into self-sacrifice for others." |
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