Varifrank: Admiral James Stockdale 1923- 2005

« Americas New Motto | Main | Baiting Sen. Schumer »

Admiral James Stockdale 1923- 2005

Admiral Stockdale on his return from North Vietnamese captivity. Just look at that little boy in the crook of his arm and imagine what he's feeling...

Admiral James Stockdale died today after a long bout with Alzheimers disease. Admiral Stockdale was many things in his life, but his most inspirational moment was the leadership he provided his men during his time as a Captive of the Vietnamese. I hesitate to say "Prisoner of War" as by any measure of treatment, the Vietnamese simply did not keep prisoners.

Here as an excerpt from the Academy of Achievement
"Stockdale wound up in Hoa Lo Prison - the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" -- where he spent the next seven years under unimaginably brutal conditions. He was physically tortured no fewer than 15 times. Techniques included beatings, whippings, and near-asphyxiation with ropes. Mental torture was incessant. He was kept in solitary confinement, in total darkness, for 4 years, chained in heavy, abrasive leg irons for 2 years, malnourished due to starvation diet and denied medical care, and deprived of letters from home in violation of the Geneva Convention.

Through it all, Stockdale's captors held out the promise of better treatment if he would only admit that the United States was engaging in criminal behavior against the Vietnamese people, but Stockdale refused. Drawing strength from principles of stoic philosophy, Stockdale heroically resisted. His courage was an inspiration to his fellow POWs, with whom he communicated in an ingenious code, maintiang unit cohesion and morale. His jailers increased the level of torture, so Stockdale determined to fight back in the only way he could.

Told that he was to be taken "downtown" and paraded in front of foreign journalists, Stockdale slashed his scalp with a razor and beat himself in the face with a wooden stool. He reasoned that his captors would not dare display a prisoner who appeared to have been beaten. When he learned that his fellow prisoners prisoners were dying under torture, he slashed his wrists to show their captors that he preferred death to submission. Stockdale literally gambled with his life, and won.

Convinced of Stockdale's determination to die rather than cooperate, the Communists ceased trying to extract bogus "confessions" from him. The torture of American prisoners ended, and treatment of all American POWs improved. Upon his release in 1973, Stockdale's extraordinary heroism became widely known, and he received the Congressional Medal of Honor in the nation's bicentennial year. He is one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the Navy, wearing 26 personal combat decorations, including four Silver Star medals in addition to the Medal of Honor.

Throughout Stockdale's captivity, his wife Sybil campaigned for respectful treatment for the families of all POWs by founding the League of Families. Sybil Stockdale was presented with the U.S. Navy Department's Distinguished Public Service Award by the Chief of Naval Operations. She is the only wife of an active-duty officer ever to be so honored.

The Admiral was treated badly in life, first by his captors and later by our country. Later in his life, he became the Vice Presidential Candidate for the 1992 Perot Campaign. As a result of not being too telegenic and more than a bit passed his prime in public speaking, he was made into a laughing stock by Saturday Night Live and popular culture.

The sight of it made me sick to my stomach. First, at Perot for picking the man in the first place and second, knowing that the greatest sin in our culture is simply not looking good on TV and what that would eventually mean to him and his reputation.

I was raised as a 'Navy Brat', and there were Navy men that my Father and Grandfather talked about only in reverential whispers. Zumwalt, Bucher, Denton, Stockdale, Mccain had the same weight to my fathers generation that Nimitz, and Halsey had to my grandfathers. The 1970's was a hard time to be in the military culture. Its easy to join when its popular, its hell when its not. But its not popularity in the end is it, its about duty.

We all have a lot to learn from the life of Admiral Stockdale. He never quit, he never lost faith. He won, and so will we.

As of today, out of respect to the Admiral and his widow, I hereby request that any and all discussions of "Gulag" and "Torture" and "The Horrors of Abu-Ghiraib" cease immediately.

Anyone discussing the subject and trying to compare it to Jim Stockdale will be met with my full fury as I read back to them the experiences of Jim Stockdale at the hands of the Communists. I will blog no more on the subject of "torture" as I find it sick, sick, to make politics in light of a man's sacrifice to his country. I promise to mock without mercy the first blogger who in any way compares the experience of Admiral Stockdale to those al-queda bastards in Guantanamo.

Dont.You.Even.Go.There

Posted @ July 05, 2005 10:04 PM | Current Affairs

I am with you on this, VF. I am an Air Force brat. My dad went to Vietnam. I read Robinson Risner's book about being a POW when I was in 7th grade. I read The Gulag Archipelago when I was in 9th grade.

The people who think the US is bad infuriate me. We have to build walls to keep people out of this country. Other countries (Cuba, North Korea)build walls to keep people in.

Here is what I wrote at the beginning of my Independence Day post last year: “The communists threw me into prison in 1975,” Father Joseph (a Vietnamese priest) said to the mostly Vietnamese congregation in this morning’s homily. “There was a teacher there. He had been to America. They ask him what America is like. ‘Everyone, even poor people, eat chicken,’ he say. An official ask how many times each year. ‘Every day,’ the teacher answer. The official get angry and say the teacher lie. He say the teacher lie to say good things about the enemy. They put the teacher in prison and starve him.”

“God bless America,” Father continued. “God bless the many people who fought for the freedom God give us and that the whole world want. This is the land of honey and milk that God promise. God bless this freedom land.”

I thank God every day that I am an American. I thank God for people like Jim Stockdale who were willing to fight for the liberty that so many of us take for granted.

Posted by: class factotum at July 6, 2005 09:31 AM