Distant Porch

As a civilian back home in Deep Gap, Barry C. Adams is a state trooper based in Wautaga County.

He was called back to active duty, though, and these days he is in Afghanistan, serving as a first sergeant.

Before a recent visit, he was missing home so much that even going shopping at the mall with his wife was starting to look good.

"Yes, I have been here too long," he joked in an e-mail.

Now 47, Adams joined the Army in 1979 because he wanted to be like his father, who served in the armed services in the 1960s and 1970s. After completing his active duty in 1985, Adams joined the N.C. Highway Patrol.

He was called back to active duty in October 2004 and sent to Afghanistan this past October. He is scheduled to complete his tour in September.

Adams is with the Regional Police Advisory Team - South, which is made up of members of the Army, Air Force and Navy as well as Canadians. He is stationed at the regional training center at Kandahar, where his responsibilities include teaching members of the Afghan National Auxiliary Police basic policing skills and what they need to know to take care of themselves at remote checkpoints.

Adams was born in Yadkinville and grew up in Yadkin County's Fall Creek community, where his parents, Roy and Selena Adams, still live. He graduated from Forbush High School in 1978.

Adams and his wife, Tammy Griffin Adams, have two sons, Dalton, 9, and Garrett, 8. He also has a 22-year-old daughter, Rebecca Adams, from his first marriage. She lives in Pfafftown.

Eating real beef in a restaurant and going to a movie in a theater were among the other things he was missing. One way that he dealt with missing home was to ask the Winston-Salem Journal to start sending him the paper.

He has been getting it since January and, at the moment, is the Journal's only subscriber in Afghanistan. Although Adams planned to pay for his subscription, Journal executives decided to send it to him for free as long as he's there.

On average, it takes the newspaper eight days to get there. On any given day, he may get none or three. After he is done soaking up the news, he passes the papers on to others from North Carolina.

In April, he got the chance to read the papers the same day they came out again. He left Afghanistan on April 13 and flew to Kuwait on an Air Force plane. He then flew to the United States on a chartered commercial plane. He arrived back at his duty station on May 5.

Travel was so time-consuming that he spent only 15 days of his 23-day trip at home.

He did go shopping with his wife a couple of times.

"I enjoyed shopping with her and will again, God willing," Adams said.

He ate all his favorite foods, including chicken and dumplings. It's a specialty of both his wife and his mother-in-law, Helen Griffin.

"Trust me on this one - you can never get enough of Nana's or my wife's chicken and dumplings," he said. "I only ate steak about 20 times."

Leaving home again was tough.

"It is hard to be away, but I have about 70 soldiers, airmen, sailors, Canadians and their families to look after and be responsible for over here that depend on me to get them home," Adams said. "My wife is very understanding and knows that I have a duty to do, and she knows I will do the best I can."

Kandahar is in southern Afghanistan. Its population of about 450,000 people makes it the second-largest city in Afghanistan. At the training center, Adams lives on what is called a forward-operating base, a gravel-covered space 200 yards square.

Adams' day starts at 5 a.m. when he rouses the Afghan police students and hustles them off to breakfast so that they have time for their prayers afterward.

"A day here is very long and fluid," he said.

While the police students are at breakfast and prayers, Adams and the other Americans may do maintenance on their Humvees or prepare for a mission. Americans not training the Afghans on a given day may go out to check on road checkpoints between Kandahar and the border with Pakistan, deliver supplies, or do whatever else they can to make life better for the men at the checkpoint.

"The Taliban like to hit our remote checkpoints," Adams said.

For those who are teaching that day, classes start at 8 a.m. and continue until 11:30 a.m. when there is a break for lunch and prayers. They start again at 1 p.m. and continue until 5 p.m.

As a first sergeant, Adams is always on duty in some sense. But, if he can get something that looks somewhat like a day off, he may sleep until 6 a.m. and take a nap after lunch.

He enjoys golf, and, after he came upon a pitching wedge, he had his wife send him some golf balls. To protect the balls and club from the gravel, he hits off a scrap of carpet. Even on a 120-degree day, he finds hitting balls relaxing.

Reading is another way to relax.

"We have a decent library due largely to Americans that send us boxes of books through the Books for Soldiers Web site," he said. "We have novels, classics, Tom Clancy to Shakespeare. And never forget the greatest book - the Bible."

■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.