James Stockdale

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On June 5, 1946, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Naval Academy with the Class of 1947 due to the reduced schedule still in effect from World War II. Academically, he ranked 130th among 821 graduates in his class. His first assignment was assistant gunnery officer aboard the destroyer minesweeper USS Carmick (DD-493) from June to October 1946. He next served aboard the USS Thompson (DD-627) from October 1946 to February 1947, the USS Charles H. Roan (DD-853) from February 1947 to July 1948, and the USS Deming (PCS-1392) from July 1948 to June 1949.

Stockdale was accepted for flight training in June 1949 and reported to Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida. He was designated a Naval Aviator at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas, in September 1950. He was next assigned for additional training at Naval Air Station Norfolk in Virginia from October 1950 to January 1951. In January 1954, he was accepted into the United States Naval Test Pilot School at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River base in Southern Maryland, and he completed his training in July 1954. There he tutored the U.S. Marine Corps aviator John Glenn in mathematics and physics. He was a test pilot until January 1957.

In 1959, the U.S. Navy sent Stockdale to Stanford University, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in international relations and comparative Marxist thought in 1962. Stockdale preferred the life of a fighter pilot over academia, but he later credited Stoic philosophy with helping him cope as a prisoner of war.

On August 2, 1964, while on a DESOTO patrol in the Tonkin Gulf, the destroyer USS Maddox (DD-731) engaged three North Vietnamese Navy P-4 torpedo boats from the 135th Torpedo Squadron. After fighting a running gun and torpedo battle, in which Maddox fired over 280 5-inch (130 mm) shells, and the torpedo boats expended their 6 torpedoes (all misses) and hundreds of rounds of 14.5mm machine gun fire; the combatants broke contact. As the torpedo boats turned for their North Vietnamese coastline, four F-8 Crusader fighter aircraft from USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) arrived, and immediately attacked the retreating torpedo boats.

Stockdale (commander VF-51 (Fighter Squadron 51)), with Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Richard Hastings attacked torpedo boats T-333 and T-336, while Commander R. F. Mohrhardt and Lieutenant Commander C. E. Southwick attacked torpedo boat T-339. The four F-8 pilots reported scoring no hits with their Zuni rockets, but reported hits on all three torpedo boats with their 20 mm cannon.

Two nights later, on August 4, 1964, Stockdale was overhead during the second reported attack in the Tonkin Gulf. Unlike the first event, which was an actual sea battle, no Vietnamese forces were, however, believed to have been involved in the second engagement. In the early 1990s, he recounted: "[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."

The next morning, on August 5, 1964, President Johnson ordered bombing raids on North Vietnamese military targets which he announced were retaliation for the alleged incident of August 4. When Stockdale was awoken in the early morning and was told he was to lead these attacks he responded: "Retaliation for what?" Later, while a prisoner of war, he was concerned that he would be forced to reveal this secret about the Vietnam War.

On September 9, 1965, while flying from USS Oriskany on a mission over North Vietnam, Stockdale ejected from his Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, which had been struck by enemy fire and completely disabled. He parachuted into a small village, where he was severely beaten and taken prisoner.

Stockdale was held as a prisoner of war in the Hỏa Lò Prison (the infamous "Hanoi Hilton") for the next seven and a half years. As the senior naval officer, he was one of the primary organizers of prisoner resistance. Tortured routinely and denied medical attention for the severely damaged leg he suffered during capture, Stockdale created and enforced a code of conduct for all prisoners which governed torture, secret communications, and behavior. In the summer of 1969, he was locked in leg irons in a bath stall and 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, he beat himself with a stool until his face was swollen beyond recognition. When Stockdale was discovered with information that could implicate his friends' so-called "black activities", he slit his wrists so they could not torture him into confession. During the course of his captivity, due to torture, his leg was broken twice.

Early in Stockdale's captivity, his wife, Sybil Stockdale, organized The League of American Families of POWs and MIAs, with other wives of servicemen who were in similar circumstances. By 1968, she and her organization, which called for the president and the U.S. Congress to publicly acknowledge the mistreatment of the POWs (something that had never been done despite evidence of gross mistreatment), gained the attention of the American press. Sybil Stockdale personally made these demands known at the Paris Peace Talks.

Stockdale was one of eleven U.S. military prisoners known as the "Alcatraz Gang": George Thomas Coker, USN; George G. McKnight, USAF; Jeremiah Denton, USN (who had graduated with Stockdale from the Naval Academy); Harry Jenkins, USN; Sam Johnson, USAF; James Mulligan, USN; Howard Rutledge, USN; Robert Shumaker, USN (originator of the name "Hanoi Hilton"); Ronald Storz, USAF (died in captivity); and Nels Tanner, USN. Because they had been resistance leaders they were separated from other captives and placed in solitary confinement in "Alcatraz", a special facility in a courtyard behind the North Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense, located about one mile away from Hỏa Lò Prison. In Alcatraz, each of the prisoners was kept in an individual windowless and concrete cell measuring 3 by 9 feet (0.9 by 2.7 m) with a light bulb kept on around the clock, and locked in leg irons each night. Of the eleven, Storz died in captivity there in 1970.

James C. Collins related a conversation he had with James Stockdale regarding his coping strategy during his period in the Vietnamese POW camp. When Collins asked which prisoners didn't make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:

Collins called this the Stockdale Paradox.

Stockdale was released as a prisoner of war on February 12, 1973, during Operation Homecoming.

On March 4, 1976, Stockdale received the Medal of Honor. Stockdale filed charges against two other officers (Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Edison W. Miller and Navy Captain Walter E. "Gene" Wilber) who, he felt, had given aid and comfort to the enemy. However, the Department of the Navy under the leadership of then-Secretary of the Navy John Warner took no action and retired these men "in the best interests of the Navy." Both Miller and Wilber received letters of censure.

Debilitated by his captivity and mistreatment, Stockdale could not stand upright and could barely walk upon his return to the United States, which prevented his return to active flying status. In deference to his previous service, the navy kept him on active duty, steadily promoting him over the next few years before he retired as a vice admiral on September 1, 1979. He completed his career by serving as the president of the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, from October 13, 1977, until August 22, 1979.

After his retirement in 1979, he became the president of The Citadel. His tenure there was short and stormy as he found himself at odds with the college's board as well as most of its administration, by proposing radical changes to the college's military system and other facets of the college. He left The Citadel to become a fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in 1981. During his twelve-year tenure at the Hoover Institution, Stockdale wrote and lectured extensively. His primary focus was ancient Stoicism and the Roman slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus, whose lessons captured in The Enchiridion Stockdale credited with providing him strength during his ordeals as a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton. Between 1981 and 1988 Stockdale also served as chair of the White House Fellows under the Reagan administration.

In 1984, Stockdale and his wife Sybil co-authored In Love and War: the Story of a Family's Ordeal and Sacrifice During the Vietnam War, which was published by Harper and Row. It recounts Stockdale's experiences while in Vietnam; additionally, in alternating chapters, it also tells the story of Sybil Stockdale's early involvement in the League of American Families of POWs and MIAs, which she helped to found, and served as its first chairperson. Their story was later made into an NBC television movie under the name In Love and War, starring James Woods and Jane Alexander.

Stockdale was a member of the board of directors of the Rockford Institute, and he was a frequent contributor to Chronicles: A magazine of American Culture.

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