The Daily Stoic - The Incredible Stoicism of James Stockdale: Prisoner At War

Episode Date: January 10, 2021

“On September 9, 1965, Admiral James Stockdale’s A-4 Skyhawk jet was shot down in Vietnam. He was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese and spent the next seven years being tortured and subjected to unimaginable loneliness and terror. Fortunately, three years earlier, he was recommended a book. That book, he says, saved his life.” Find out how Stoicism helped James Stockdale face unimaginable adversity, on today’s podcast. Today’s episode is brought to you by Thuma. Thuma has spent thousands of hours making the perfect platform bed frame, called The Bed. The Bed by Thuma is super supportive of your mattress, breathes well, and is built to naturally minimize noise. Thuma ships your bed frame right to your door, and it takes five minutes to assemble, no tools required. Visit Thuma.co/stoic to get free shipping on your order of The Bed today. ***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. on music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage,

justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stowed philosophers, we reflect, we prepare. We think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not Russian to worker, to get the kids to school.

When we have the time to think or to get the kids to school when we have the time to think to go for a walk to sit with our journals and to prepare for what the future will bring. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting.

Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown Aller, we will be your resident not so expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking. Oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night,

you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another weekend episode of The Daily Stood Podcast. Here we are. And I wanted to talk today about someone who I got to mention briefly in the new book, Lies of the Stoics, but we decided in that book to sort of cut off at Marcus Aurelius. First, that there's a perfectness of starting with, you know, ending with Marcus Aurelius, you got Zeta A, so to speak, but just decided to profile the ancient Stoics in that book.

just decided to profile the ancient Stoics in that book. Were there Stoics aftermarket through this? Absolutely. Are there even modern recent-day Stoics? Yes. The most impressive and awe-inspiring is probably Admiral James Stockdale. I've been lucky enough to speak at the Stockdale Center at the US Naval Academy a few times. I'm actually a fellow there at the Stockdale Center. But I didn't get to profile Stockdale the way I wanted to in the book. I mentioned him briefly in the Epictetus chapter in a few other places. But what I wanted to do today was give you a glimpse into the life and philosophy of the great James Stockdale. What we could learn from him.

I call him in today's episode, not a prisoner of war, although he famously was a POW in the Vietnam War, but a prisoner at war. He was at war against fate, at war against adversity, at war against his own limitations, at war against doubt and fear, at war against pain and despair. And he was largely victorious in those battles and I think that makes him a particularly awe-inspiring figure. And so here we are today looking at the incredible stoicism of the great James Stockdale. On September 9th, 1965, James Stockdale's A4 Skyhawk

was shot down over Vietnam. He was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese and spent the next seven years being tortured and subjected to unimaginable loneliness and terror. But fortunately, three years earlier, he was recommended a book, that book, he says, saved his life. After 20 years in the Navy, Stockdale had decided to go back to school.

He enrolled in a two-year graduate program at Stanford where he studied philosophy under the World War II Naval Commander, Philip Rhinelander. After the final class, knowing that Stockdale was graduating and returning to the cockpit, Ryan Lander gave him a copy of Epic Titus' In Corridion, a handbook for the busy man, he had called it. Over the next three years, Stockdale boarded aircraft carriers all over the western Pacific.

He launched three seven-month cruises to the waters off Vietnam. He led the first ever American bombing raid against North Vietnam. He commanded the USS Oris Caini, where the mighty O, as it was nicknamed, but on my bedside table, Stockdale said, no matter what carrier I was aboard, were epic teetuses' books. Then exactly three years after leaving Stanford, Stockdale was shot down and captured. After the ejection Stockdale later wrote, I whispered to myself, five years down there at least.

I am leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epic Titus. Those three years with Epic Titus had taught him the importance of autonomy and the freedom of his own mind that it was something that could never be taken from him. In prison, the words of Epic Titus kept coming back to him. Do you not know that life is a soldier's service? If you neglect your responsibilities, when some severe order is laid upon you, do you not understand to what a pitiful state you bring the army.

And each day, Stockdale lived what Epictetus taught him, that a podium and a prison is each a place one high and the other low, but in either place your freedom of choice can be maintained, if you so wish. Stockdale learned in that prison camp and what they had come to call the Hanoi Hilton. He learned to live without fear or hope as the Stoics teach, believing that fear and hope were flip sides of the same coin pointless concern for future events. Most of his fellow POWs stockdale noticed tormented themselves with hope, a hope of an early release, a hope they would be rescued next week, next month, next year. They were the ones Stockdale said who died of a broken heart and didn't make it out

alive. But Stockdale's stoic practice helped him confront the grim reality of his situation without giving in to despair or depression. He realized that only the ruthless acceptance of the presence would sustain him over the long haul. So casting aside all thoughts of future fears or hopes, he believed instead only that the harm could be done to him would be done by himself. I learned what stoic harm meant, he said, a shoulder broken, a bone in my back broken,

a leg broken twice were peanuts by comparison. Epictetus had said, look not for any greater harm than this, destroying the trustworthy self-respecting well-behaved man within you. With those words on a kind of internal loop stock deal, said he never doubted that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life.

Maintaining that balance of radical acceptance of the present realities with the optimism in maintaining the freedom of his own choices was the paradoxical key to his survival. Jim Collins, the best-selling author, would dub it the stockpale paradox in his classic Good to Great. You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end regardless of the difficulties Collins explains, and at the same time, you must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. With that powerful blend of radical realism

and relentless optimism, Stockdale made it out alive. He was released in returned home during Operation Homecoming on February 12, 1973. He was awarded the Medal of Honor a few weeks later. He could barely walk, let alone stand up right, following the debilitating treatment and captivity, which included being forced to wear heavy leg irons for over two years. Otherwise, he would have returned, had he had the choice, straight to the cockpit. Instead, he was promoted Vice Admiral of the US Navy and eventually retired in 1979 after a 32-year career. In all, Stockdale was awarded 27 combat awards, the Medal of Honor, two distinguished flying

crosses, four silver stars and two purple hearts among others. But the Stoic is not only a soldier, Stockdale's civilian life was equally productive and decorated. He was named a fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University and spent more than a decade there teaching the Stoic philosophy that saved his life. He was asked to serve as a chair of the White House Fellows under the Reagan administration. He and his wife, Sybil, co-authored in Love and War, the story of a family's ordeal and sacrificed during the Vietnam War, which was later made into a movie starring James Woods in James Alexander.

He was, to his own surprise, announced as the billionaire business tycoon and independent presidential candidate Ross Perot's vice presidential running mate. And a few months later, Stockdale found himself on national television debating against Al Gore and Dan Quail. Who am I? Why am I here, Stockdale famously responded when asked for an opening statement. These were questions meant to poke fun at the fact that he was not a politician like his counterparts.

But the hotty ignorance of the media and uninformed public led not only to the missed opportunity of bringing wisdom to the political conversation, but the mocking of a hero. There was even a Saturn and Night Live recreation later that week with Phil Hartman as Stockdale. His reputation tragically was damaged and never fully recovered, at least not in his lifetime. It was terribly frustrating, Stockdale later explained. I began my remarks with the two questions that are perennially debated by every thinking human being.

I chose them for their broader relevance to my life. I am a philosopher, he said. Dennis Miller, the comedian, said it best in his 1994 HBO comedy special. Look at the record folks, he said. The guy was the first guy in and the last guy out of Vietnam, a war that many Americans, including our current president, did not want to dirty their hands with.

He's a brilliant, sensitive, courageous man. And yet, he committed the one unpardonable sin in our culture. He was bad on television. Stockdale died in 2005 at the age of 81. His legacy outlives him. The Navy has the Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale Award for Inspirational Leadership.

There's a guided missile destroyer, christened the USS Stockdale. The main gate and building at the Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado, California are named in his honor. There are buildings and halls named after him, as well as a statue of him at the U.S. Naval Academy and even the Stockdale Center for Leadership in Annapolis. The jet he flew early in his career was restored and put on display at Airbase Arizona. But the truth is, Stockdale's legacy is with us all every single day. We are in a Stockdale moment, as Jim Collins said in a recent message to fans and students. The world is in a

Stockdale moment, he said. Our countries are in a Stockdale moment. Our companies and organizations are in a Stockdale moment, and we ourselves are in a stockdale moment. Stockdale learned to lead and fulfill his duties in unimaginable circumstances. Let it inspire us to do the same, to remain unbroken, to seize our freedom, to prepare ourselves for the difficulties of life, and to know in the end that we will prevail

no matter what happens. The Stoics were not just thinkers and writers. Even 2000 years ago they talked about pen and ink philosophers. They meant that derisively. They wanted philosophers who were doers, right? And that's the point of Stoicism. It's to help make you better in the real world. And so the new book, Lies of the Sto, is gonna look at how did these actual human beings live the ideas in the philosophy they espoused. In all my other books I've been talking about the ideas, the teachings of Stoicism,

but this is the first time the lives of the Stokes have been documented all in one place, literally ever in history. It's how did these men and women apply the ideas of Stoicism to the challenges of their lives and of their times. From the Stoics we can learn so much about resilience, about perseverance, about happiness, about virtue. So I'm so excited about the new book, Lies of the Stoics, the Art of Living from Xenota Marcus Aurelius. Please check it out and thank you

very much. Lies of the Stoics, the Art of living from Xeno to Marcus Aurelius by Ryan Holiday and Steve Enhancelman available anywhere books are sold. Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it. The reviews make a difference and of course every nice review from a nice person helps balance out. But crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. We'll see you next episode. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music,

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