A Collection of Charlie Adams Exploits!

Charlie Adams was an acquaintance I met in Vietnam in 1970. I say acquaintance because I don’t think I really knew him. He seemed to be a mild mannered government bureaucrat who, as he put it, helped insure our country’s interests were achieved. He was always vague about his job and where he worked. Perhaps he was what he said, but I like to think he was much more. The more I learned of Charlie, the more I was convinced he was with the CIA or some other agency working internationally for America's best interests. He reeked of danger and I tended to avoid his company.

Charlie, however, seemed to be very much a man of legendary status and his exploits were a favorite topic amongst a few of the people I worked with. These tales were no doubt exaggerated in their repeated telling, and from the fact that he was himself often the source of the narrative … he had a fertile imagination. Having said that, none of us were really confident in vouching for their believability. But we enjoyed them none-the-less.

While I haven’t heard from or about Charlie for several years now, I still enjoy remembering back to when he was a frequent topic of discussion and his exploits were a way we all lived vicariously in his world. We often feared that with the many “close calls” he was credited with avoiding, he may have met his match and his exceptionally exciting life was cut short. But we were wrong … he lived on!

So, what I’ve collected here are the stories I’ve heard about Charlie’s exploits. I offer them with no endorsement of their validity – I’ve simply written of his exploits in the detail of their telling. Regardless, I’m sure Charlie would enjoy knowing his stories live happily ever after.