In May of 2011, the United States Navy Memorial Stories of Service Program had the honor of attending the Swift Boat Sailors Association Reunion in San Antonio, Texas. Over the course of two days, a number of interviews were recorded, including that of Lieutenant Commander James Adams. During his interview, Lieutenant Commander Adams recalled his service at sea where he was stationed off the coast of Vietnam during the early stages of the war. He then spoke at length about his service as a Psychological Warfare Officer which would bring him into direct contact with enemy forces. He shared, “My role in the Vietnam War started in August during the Gulf of Tonkin; I was on an aircraft carrier at the time and I was a Communications Officer. I was on watch and we were in Japan at the time, I was on the USS Bonhomme Richard CVA 31. Several weeks later I was sent down to Yankee Station to bomb North Vietnam... spent two combat cruises.” From the surface fleet, he was sent to Allied Forces Southern Europe located in Napes, Italy. His service would not end there, as his new assignment after Italy would be something unlike anything he had trained for before and his new mission would be completely different from that of the surface fleet.

Adams recalled, “I was ordered to Special Warfare School where I was to become a Psychological Warfare Advisor to the Vietnamese Fourth Coastal Zone.” He stated that, “Psychological warfare was pretty much in its infancy, bottom line we were trying to win the hearts and minds of our adversaries. In this case were the South Vietnamese, the villagers that we thought maybe had a choice. Our job was to psychologically seduce them to be on our side.” He spoke in great detail about his training both within the classroom and out, focusing on combat and survival. From his training at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School, he would be ordered to Vietnam.

After arriving in Vietnam, Adams spoke fondly about his counterpart, “When I got down to the base camp...my counterpart, I found out, was a Vietnamese Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade Officer...I met him and his people and we started to develop a relationship. We got along well.” His positive relationship with his counterpart would be echoed throughout the remainder of his interview as well as their success in learning from each other and completing quality operations. Of his operations, Adams shared recounted, "My job as an advisor, we did a lot of help, and helped a lot of people...it was more getting to know the people, in my case it was working with the South Vietnamese Navy, and letting them know if they needed support from us we could provide it. We would go to the villages with medical civic action programs, bringing doctors, dentists, and corpsmen to the villages to help their children and wives...helping them live a better life.” His message was that, “we learned a lot, but also helped a lot.” His four part interview provided moving insight to the Psychological Warfare Theater of the Vietnam War. His final words were equally moving when he stated that he wanted to be interviewed because one day his children might be interested about his story.

To hear the inspiring story of Vietnam War Veteran Lieutenant Commander James Adams United States Navy Reserve Retired come alive; view his detailed experience that has been digitally archived by the Navy Memorial.

The United States Navy Memorial honors Lieutenant Commander James Adams, featured within the series titled, Stories of Service, Story of the Month. Each month, this series honors a Veteran’s story recorded by the Stories of Service Program at the Navy Memorial.