It was Christmas morning in 2006, and Adam Napier had only been in Iraq two months supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Only 22 at the time, the Mississippi native stood before his platoon and delivered a safety brief while wearing a Santa Claus hat. They were in good spirits, looking forward to doing the day’s work and getting back to devour some good food, not the typical grub they usually have in the chow haul.
A couple hours later, the squad was walking through a neighboring town and heard a cell phone ring. They braced for the worst. An IED exploded, leaving several wounded. Although his vest caught most of the shrapnel, Napier still had shards plastered in his face and hands. One piece of the bomb blasted through the magazine of his weapon and hit his radio. He was medevaced to the hospital.
Back in the States, Napier’s family was notified around 6 a.m. that he had been injured but no real details were given regarding his condition. The family waited and waited. It wasn’t until 10 hours later when Napier called to tell them he was OK. Sadly though, his interpreter, Gino Majid, did not survive the blast. Majid, who was standing next to Napier when the IED detonated, was born in Iraq and was teaching foreign languages at the University of Indiana.
“He felt the call to serve so he volunteered his time,” Napier said. “He raised his hand and said, ‘I’ll go.’ Then he was our first one we lost.
“Christmas was different that year,” he said.
Improbably, Napier was back on patrol the next day. Later that week, the platoon was hit by another IED, this one buried underground and impossible to spot. Napier’s radio telephone operator (RTO), Specialist Luis Ayala, was killed.
“He was standing next to me and caught most of the blast,” Napier recalled. “For some reason, and I can’t explain it to this day, I squatted down to look at something. When I did, the IED went off and blew up over me. I was within five feet of it. His body shielded me.”
Napier took on more shrapnel and had a rock lodged in his face. A protective insert plate prevented more damage from ripping through his stomach, but again, he took a helicopter with his squad to get medical treatment.
“I got my second Purple Heart three days after I got my first one,” Napier said, his voice tinged with sadness.
Eight months later, Napier was on a patrol base in Iraq as part of a larger platoon of 120 soldiers. They were working jointly with the Iraqi Army to police communities and show the locals that the Americans were not the enemy, that they were there to help. One afternoon, two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) hit their station. One SUV was carrying 1,200 pounds of explosives. The other, 1,500 pounds.
None of Napier’s original squad members were killed, but many U.S. soldiers were injured, and eight Iraqi soldiers lost their lives in that attack.
“The first one went off, and I put my gear on and just as I got out the door, the second one went off,” Napier said. “It knocked me down, that’s how big it was. We couldn’t see anything. There were smoke clouds everywhere. It was like being in the middle of a sandstorm.”
That deployment changed Napier forever, and how could it not? Only 19 of the original 33 soldiers from his platoon finished together. Napier took leave time to go home and attempted to process everything that he’d been through. He got a German Shepard puppy named Titus that was his best friend for the next 13 years. But times were tough.
“I felt like a different person immediately,” he said. “I felt like a 50-year-old 25-year-old.
I come back to Mississippi, go see friends that weren’t married when I left. I come back and they’re married with a kid. There were people I’ve been friends with through high school and college, people I played sports with. It’s weird when you’ve always fit in with those people and then you come back and you don’t anymore.
Napier did another 13 months in Iraq in 2009-10, this stint less eventful. He recalls having to fire his weapon only three times during that span, which he calls cathartic. He visited the same part of the country as his first deployment and was able to see all the improvements made to the different areas, all because of the work he and his band of brothers did a few years prior.
“We got a chance to see what our blood, sweat and tears had done,” he said. “A lot of Veterans and military people don’t get that chance. It was healing.”
A third deployment came three years later, when Napier was a captain with the 4th Brigade 10th Mountain Division. Although he called that tour “pretty smooth” he knew it was time to develop an exit strategy when he returned home.
“I was pretty beat up at that point after three deployments,” he said. “Just tired, mentally and physically. It was pretty clear that it was time.”
Napier was honorably discharged in late 2016. He had spent 56 months deployed.
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Now 44, Napier grew up in Collins, Mississippi, just north of Hattiesburg and was part of an athletic family. He played many sports but didn’t get the golf bug until high school when he followed a girl to a golf course. Napier improved quickly and played on the high school golf team and eventually played two years at a Mississippi junior college. The September 11 terrorist attacks happened during his sophomore year and, coming from a family where his father and two grandfathers spent time in the military, Napier knew he would eventually enlist. Five years later was the Christmas in Iraq that he’ll never forget.
Golf was never far from his mind, either. Though he wasn’t able to play often, he always knew it was a game he’d pick back up after his military service ended. He was on a team of 18 soldiers late during his third deployment, and six loved the game. They found a way to have clubs and balls sent to them, and they were able to hit balls on a regular basis. He hadn’t played in a decade and found that he lost most of his bad habits. Starting fresh was a blessing.
After that deployment concluded and he left the service, Napier was visiting a VA clinic in Jackson and was told about a PGA HOPE program, where Veterans were able to receive free golf lessons. He jumped in headfirst and has helped with the program since that day. Eight years after being introduced to PGA HOPE, Napier represented the Gulf States PGA Section as one of 20 Ambassadors in the nation’s capital in October. PGA HOPE (Helping Our Patriots Everywhere) is the flagship military program of the PGA of America REACH Foundation, introducing and teaching golf to Veterans and Active Duty Military to enhance their physical, mental, social and emotional well-being.
“I continually get to see what this program does for our Veterans,” Napier said. “It gets them out of the house. Almost every clinic we have someone that I don’t know will ever go play golf again, but you can tell they need to be around other Veterans.
“You see a group of guys that on Week 1 don’t know each other, and then at Week 6, 7 or 8 I’ll go to a golf course and I’ll see four guys from one of our HOPE clinics there playing together. They will always share that bond from being a Veteran. It’s hugely therapeutic.”
Said Christopher Garner, Napier’s squad leader during the Ambassador outing: “The guy is a warrior. I can’t say enough great things about him. He’s truly a quiet professional, which is something that’s well-respected in the military from people who have combat experience. He doesn’t seek or need recognition for anything even though he was a complete badass. He only wants to help people.”
Napier is a member of former President George W. Bush’s Team 43, an initiative that supports post-9/11 Veterans transitioning to civilian life. Napier, a low single-digit handicap, even won Bush’s Warrior Open in 2021 and represented the Bush Center at the 2022 American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe.
Napier could retire, but he says he’s too young and there remains too much to do. He lives in Louisville, Mississippi, with four dogs and three cats – all rescue animals – and has worked for TaylorMade the past six years helping to schedule all fitting events in his surrounding area. In his spare time, he does anything he can to help the PGA HOPE program and can often be found helping kids get properly fitted for equipment, as he’s done for years at clubs such as Old Waverly. Tim Yelverton, a longtime friend and teaching professional at the club, described Napier as, “a really good ambassador for golf and the military and bringing it all together. He’s always more concerned with how he can help instead of how others can help him.”
“I feel like through everything that I’m happy in the way I’ve turned out, because I’ve seen places where I could have veered off and gone the other way,” Napier said. “I’ve been lucky to have things in my life fall into place when they easily could’ve gone off the rails. I just feel very fortunate about that at the end of the day.”
PGA HOPE (Helping Our Patriots Everywhere) is on a mission unlike any other – to change and save Veteran’s lives through the power of golf. The program introduces and teaches golf to Veterans and Active Duty Military to enhance their physical, mental, social and emotional well-being. Led by PGA of America Golf Professionals, the program is inclusive of a developmental 6-8 week curriculum. All programs are provided at no cost to all participating Veterans. To learn more or donate, visit www.pgahope.com.