James Stockdale
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Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale (December 23, 1923 – July 5, 2005) was one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the United States Navy. He was the highest ranking naval officer held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Stockdale led the U.S. air squadron during the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident. He was awarded 26 personal combat decorations, including the Medal of Honor and four Silver Stars. Stockdale is also remembered as a Vice Presidential candidate in the 1992 election on Ross Perot's independent ticket.
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Naval and Academic Career
Stockdale was born in Abingdon, Illinois. During World War II, he attended the Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1946. Stockdale always spoke with great love and respect about his father who went to great lengths to get him into Annapolis. Stockdale promised his dad he would be the best midshipman at the Naval Academy and always thought of this promise when he became a prisoner. Shortly after graduating, Stockdale reported to Pensacola, Florida for flight training. In 1954, Stockdale was accepted into the Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland. Among his classmates there was John Glenn. Stockdale was always interested in philosophy and returned to Stanford University to continue his education in 1960. He was awarded a masters degree two years later. He was so shining in academics, his superiors urged him to get a doctorate and become an academic. He preferred the life of a fighter pilot. Stockdale later credited philosophy with helping him cope as a prisoner of war.
On August 4, 1964, squadron commander Stockdale was one of the US pilots flying overhead during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. About which he said in the early 1990s: "[I] had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets—there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power." Stockdale said his superiors ordered him to keep quiet about this. After he was captured, this knowledge threw a burden upon him. He later said he was concerned that his captors would eventually force him to reveal that he knew the most terrible secret about the Vietnam War.
On a mission over North Vietnam on September 9, 1965, Stockdale ejected from his A-4E Skyhawk, which had been disabled from anti-aircraft fire. Stockdale parachuted into a small village, where he was severely beaten and taken into custody.
He was held as a prisoner of war in the Hoa Lo prison for the next seven years. Locked in leg irons in a bath stall, he was routinely tortured and beaten. When told by his captors that he was to be paraded in public, Stockdale slit his scalp with a razor to purposely disfigure himself so that his captors could not use him as propaganda. When they covered his head with a hat, Stockdale beat himself with a stool until his face was swollen beyond recognition. He told them in no uncertain terms that they would never use him. When Stockdale heard that other prisoners were dying under the torture, he slit his wrists and told them that he preferred death to submission.
Little did Stockdale know that the actions of his wife, Mrs. Sybil Stockdale, had a tremendous impact on how the North Vietnamese reacted to these acts of self-mutalation in 1969. Early in her husband's captivity she organized The League of American Families of POW's and MIA's, with other wives of servicemen who were in similar circumstance. By 1968 she and her organization, which called for the President and the U.S. Congress to publicly acknowledge the mistreatment of the POW's (something that they had never done even though they had evidence of gross mistreatment), was finally getting the attention of the American press and consequently the attention of the North Vietnamese. Mrs. Stockdale personally made these demands known at The Paris Peace Talks and private comments made to her by the head of the Vietnamese delegation there indicated concern that her organization might catch the attention of the American public, something the North Vietnamese knew could turn the tide against them. The result couldn't have been more fortunate for James Stockdale at the very time he slit his wrists. The Vietnamese now understood that they had no choice but to end their program of brutal torture or else they would be exposed internationally for their gross acts of cruelty, something that would completely derail their propaganda program which had so successfully convinced the American press and public that the prisoners were well treated.
Stockdale was released as a prisoner of war in 1973.
His shoulders had been wrenched from their sockets, his leg shattered by angry villagers and a torturer, and his back broken. But he had refused to capitulate. [1]
He received the Medal of Honor in 1976. Stockdale filed charges against two other officers whom he felt had given aid and comfort to the enemy. However, the Navy Department took no action and merely retired these men.
Debilitated by his captivity and mistreatment, Stockdale could hardly walk or even stand upright upon his return to the US. The Navy, out of respect for his courage, kept him on the active list, steadily promoting him over the next few years before permitting him to retire as a vice admiral.
After his retirement, he became the president of The Citadel in South Carolina in 1979. He left The Citadel to become a fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in 1981. During the following two decades, Stockdale wrote a number of books both on his experiences during the Vietnam War and afterwards, and on philosophy. His best known work is In Love and War: the Story of a Family's Ordeal and Sacrifice During the Vietnam War, co-written with his wife Sybil and published in 1984. It is a compilation of love letters he sent to his wife while he was a captured POW. It was later made into an NBC television movie, watched by 45 million people.
Vice-Presidential candidacy
Stockdale came to know H. Ross Perot through Sybil Stockdale's work in establishing an organization to represent the families of Vietnam POWs. Ross Perot asked Stockdale to be nominated as Vice-President on the ticket in March 1992 at a news conference at the Loews Annapolis Hotel in Annapolis, Maryland. Perot told him that he would be placeholder until Perot found a running mate. Stockdale thought that his name would be removed from the ballot when Perot temporarily withdrew from the race.
Perot eventually re-entered the race in the fall of 1992 with Stockdale still in place as the vice-presidential nominee for the Reform Party. Stockdale was not informed that he would be participating in the vice-presidential debate until a week before the event. He had no formal preparation for the debate, unlike his opponents Al Gore and Dan Quayle. This lack of preparation was highlighted in the debate when Stockdale's opening comments were "Who am I? Why am I here?". Later in the debate, Stockdale asked the moderator to repeat a question because he didn't have his hearing aid turned on. Stockdale's performance in the debate was widely criticized.
In a subsequent interview with Jim Lehrer, Stockdale explained that the statements were intended as an introduction of him and his record to the television audience:
- It was terribly frustrating because I remember I started with, "Who am I? Why am I here?" and I never got back to that because there was never an opportunity for me to explain my life to people. It was so different from Quayle and Gore. The four years in solitary confinement in Vietnam, 7½ years in prisons, drop the first bomb that started the...American bombing raid in the North Vietnam. We blew the oil storage tanks of then off the map. And I never—I couldn't approach—I don't say it just to brag, but, I mean, my sensitivities are completely different.
Final Years
Stockdale retired to California, as he slowly succumbed to Alzheimer's disease. He died from the mind-debilitating illness on July 5, 2005. Stockdale's funeral service was held at the Naval Academy Chapel and he was buried at the United States Naval Academy Cemetery. A luxury suite at the Loews Annapolis Hotel, the hotel where Perot announced his candidacy, was named in his honor.
Books by James Stockdale
- Taiwan and the Sino-Soviet Dispute Stanford, California, 1962.
- The Ethics of Citizenship University of Texas at Dallas, 1981, Andrew R. Cecil lectures on moral values in a free society featured Stockdale and other speakers.
- James Bond Stockdale Speaks on the "Melting Experience: Grow or Die" Hoover Institution, Stanford, 1981 speech to the graduating class of John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio.
- A Vietnam Experience: Ten Years of Reflection, Hoover Institution, Stanford, 1984, ISBN 0-8179-8151-9.
- In Love and War: The Story of a Family's Ordeal and Sacrifice During the Vietnam Years Harper & Row, New York, 1984, ISBN 0-06-015318-0.
- In Love and War: The Story of a Family's Ordeal and Sacrifice During the Vietnam Years Naval Institute Press, reprint 1990, Annapolis, Maryland, ISBN 0-87021-308-3.
- Courage Under Fire: Testing Epictetus's Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior Hoover Institution, Stanford, 1993, ISBN 0-8179-3692-0.
- Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot, Hoover Institution, Stanford, 1995 ISBN 0-8179-9391-6.
Other writings by James Stockdale
References
Online References
- Interview with Jim Lehrer on 1992 Vice-Presidential debate
- Medal of Honor page
- Hoover Institution Biography
- Associated Press obituary for Stockdale 6 July 2005
- Washington Post obituary for Stockdale 6 July 2005
- The Guardian report on Stockdale's death July 2005
- Personal Webpage
- Memorial Service for Admiral James B. Stockdale
- Naval Academy Tribute to Stockdale
- U.S. Navy Announces the Death of Retired Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale
- NAVAL ACADEMY FUNERAL SERVICE
Written References
Apart from the works written by Stockdale himself, the following work refers extensively to Stockdale's involvement in the Tonkin Gulf:
- Edwin E. Moise, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War UNC Press North Carolina 1996 ISBN 0807823007
The following book is based on the series of lectures delivered for the course in moral philosophy established at the Naval War College by Admiral Stockdale in 1978, when Stockdale was president of the college. The course was designed by Stockdale and Professor Joseph Brennan, who continued to teach it after Stockdale retired from the Navy. The Foreword was written by Stockdale.
- Joseph Gerard Brennan, FOUNDATIONS OF MORAL OBLIGATION: The Stockdale Course, Presidio Press, Novato, California (1994) ISBN 0891415289
