Security enterprise author credits Army for his healing, growth
Leonard Adams embodies this definition, overcoming a difficult childhood to become a resilient Soldier, father, counselor and published author.
Adams is an operations research systems analyst at the Security Assistance Command, within its G2/6 directorate. Most colleagues know him as the soloist who sings the national anthem at ceremonies a cappella. Or they know him as a soft-spoken friend with sage advice.
Not many of his teammates know the hardships he and his nine siblings endured in their south side of Chicago environment. If they see the scar on his head, they may think it came from an injury during his Army service, and not an attack by his father.
Adams’ parents divorced when he was very young. Most of the children ended up with their father after being told their mother had abandoned them. He learned later that was not true.
After their father remarried, most of the physical abuse began. Beatings, being tied up, and even one younger sibling being placed inside a hot oven, were just some of the horrors he endured or witnessed.
When he was 16, he described his childhood to his school psychologist who told Adams that if he became a mass murderer, no one could blame him. His descriptions were not sensational; they were real life.
His mother came to see her children after learning where they lived years after the divorce. She told the children if they ever wanted to see her to, “Hop in a taxi and I’ll pay for it.” Slowly the siblings moved out of their father’s house to go live with their mother. Adams was 14 when he moved to her house.
It was crowded at his mother’s, but full of love and safety. His mother had taken in five of her nieces and nephews, plus other children of friends. At one time there were 17 people living there. Sometimes they were eating off $5 a day. But they were not being mistreated or abused.
Adams enlisted in the Army in Chicago, and landed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He admits he entered the Army as an angry young man, carrying his trauma from his years of abuse and belittling. “Particularly in my early 20s and as a teenager, I was full of hate, full of fear. I hated life and was miserable all the time.”
His older brother had enlisted in the Army and served as a nurse. Since a nurse was close to being a doctor, which he aspired to be, Adams decided that was a good route to take.
While at Fort Sill, he took college courses at night. Eventually he entered the Green to Gold program, where the Army allowed him to attend school full time, and he was a cadet in the Reserve Officer Training Corps. He was pinned with his second lieutenant bar once he finished with a degree from Cameron University, in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Adams’ entry tests showed he was color blind, which prevented him from entering the nursing field. He wanted to stay in the medical arena, so he chose counseling. That decision was the beginning of Adams’ future endeavors. “I did not know the benefits counseling would have on my life.”
After leaving his Army service Adams worked as a counselor in the Tennessee Department of Corrections. Specifically, Adams worked in a mental health prison where he had to determine the level of incarceration for prisoners. Included in his duties was developing training for the guards and prison staff on behavioral therapy.
It was during a counseling session with an inmate that a light bulb went off for Adams. “I had a person in a session ask what I knew about pain? He said I was always smiling, and that I must have grown up in a ‘Leave it to Beaver’ household.’” Adams then started to share his childhood trauma and began to see how his background could help others, including himself.
People have asked him how he has avoided becoming jaded or bitter. He shares that he was not always the man he is now. “Once I became a counselor and learned the techniques of behavioral therapy, I started applying them to myself because I did not want to spend the rest of my life unforgiving, bitter and miserable. I knew I had control of the rest of my life.”
He eventually moved to Huntsville, worked as a defense contractor and then became an Army civilian. In 2021 he joined USASAC.
For years Adams has been writing and journaling about his childhood, and ways to overcome adversity. In 2018 he finished his first book, “Things I Wish My Father Had Told Me” and set out to have it published. After numerous rejection letters, he self-published. One rejection from a publisher said that he would have to make significant edits, so Adams decided he would not work with a traditional publishing house. The book was updated and re-released in August 2026. The new edition includes more questions he wished he could have asked his father.
His second published work, “Prepare to Love: 100 Questions and Answers,” was published in 2024 and includes honest, raw questions that real people have asked him over the years. Questions include ones about self-worth, relationship advice, and growing as a person.
Adams says he is not finished writing. He will retire in October and plans on writing a 12-part series called “Breaking the Beliefs That Break You.” Each book will cover an irrational belief, such as the need for perfection, or talking negatively about yourself. This upcoming series will be an extension of the training he developed for the Tennessee Department of Corrections but will be more in-depth.
What makes a person more resilient than others from the same environment is still an evolving field of study. Adams shared that the other five siblings who were as exposed to the abuse as he was have had different outcomes. One sibling became an alcoholic but is better because of rehab, while the sister who was placed in the oven ended up in psychiatric institutions.
He gives a lot of credit to the Army for helping him become who he is today. The Army gave him the tools to turn his experiences around and heal from his trauma. “It made me the man I have become. I remain a grateful person in a grateful nation.”
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