
In describing his seven and a half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, the late Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale has said: "In that atmosphere of death and hopelessness, stripped of the niceties, the amenities of civilization, my ideas on life and leadership crystallized." Despite torture, intimidation, and isolation, Stockdale fulfilled his duties as senior officer among the prisoners with intelligence and courage, defining rules of conduct and maintaining morale. He often described the intense pressures of that situation as a "melting" experience, in which preconceived feelings, fears, and bias melt as one comes to realize that, under the gun, you must grow or fail—or, in some cases, grow or die.
This collection of his essays and speeches from the 1980s and 1990s reinforces how that experience formed a lifelong basis for his philosophical thought on issues of character, leadership, integrity, personal and public virtue, and ethics. The selections in this volume all reflect, in one way or another, a central theme: how man can rise with dignity to prevail in the face of adversity.
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1923–2005
James Bond Stockdale (December 23, 1923 – July 5, 2005) was a United States Navy vice admiral and aviator awarded the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War, during which he was a prisoner of war for over seven years. Commander Stockdale was the senior naval officer held captive in Hanoi, North Vietnam. He had led aerial attacks from the carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) during the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident. On his next deployment, while Commander of Carrier Air Wing Sixteen aboard the carrier USS Oriskany (CV-34), his A-4 Skyhawk jet was shot down in North Vietnam on September 9, 1965. He served as President of the Naval War College from October 1977 until he retired from the Navy in 1979. As Vice Admiral, Stockdale became the President for The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina. Stockdale held this position from 1979 to 1980. Stockdale was a candidate for Vice President of the United States in the 1992 presidential election, on Ross Perot's independent ticket.
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