James B. Stockdale (James Bond Stockdale) was a U.S. Navy vice admiral and Vietnam War prisoner of war who drew on Epictetus and Stoic philosophy to endure captivity and lead others.
This collection, often referred to as Stockdale on Stoicism, presents essays and lectures that connect ancient Stoic ethics to modern leadership and resilience.
Begin with Courage Under Fire, then continue with The Stoic Warrior's Triad and The Master of My Fate.
Stockdale on Stoicism:
- The Stoic Warrior's Triad: Tranquility, Fearlessness and Freedom
- The Master Of My Fate: A Stoic Philosopher in a Hanoi Prison
Bio
Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN (RET.), served on active duty in the regular Navy for 37 years, most of those years as a fighter pilot aboard aircraft carriers. Shot down on his third combat tour over North Vietnam, he was the senior naval prisoner of war in Hanoi for seven and one-half years—tortured 15 times, in solitary confinement for over four years, in leg irons for two. A 1947 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he was later selected for the Naval Academy Alumni Association's Distinguished Graduate Award.
During his sea duty, no matter what carrier he was aboard, his bedside table held Epictetus's books, the Enchiridion and Discourses, alongside Xenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates and Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey. He did not have time to be a bookworm, but he spent several hours each week buried in those Stoic readings, noting that Epictetus expected his students to be familiar with Homer's plots.
When physical disability from combat wounds brought about his retirement, he had the distinction of being the only three-star officer in the history of the U.S. Navy to wear both aviator wings and the Medal of Honor. Included in his 26 other combat decorations are two Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Distinguished Service Medals, four Silver Star medals, and two Purple Hearts. In 1979, the Secretary of the Navy established the Vice Admiral James Stockdale Award for Inspirational Leadership, presented annually to two commanding officers, one in the Atlantic Fleet and one in the Pacific Fleet.
As a civilian, Stockdale was a college president (a year as President of The Citadel), a lecturer in the philosophy department of Stanford University, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford for 15 years, now Emeritus. A long-time student and teacher of philosophy with a focus on the moral obligations of individuals, especially military officers, he described himself as a "philosophical fighter pilot," and his writings converge on how man can rise in dignity to prevail in the face of adversity.
He co-authored In Love and War with his wife, Sybil, later dramatized by NBC in 1987 with James Woods and Jane Alexander, and wrote A Vietnam Experience: Ten Years of Reflection and Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot, both winners of the Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge's George Washington Honor Medal for books. Monmouth College in his native state of Illinois, from which he entered the Naval Academy, named its student union the Stockdale Center; he was a 1990 Laureate of the Abraham Lincoln Academy in Illinois at the University of Chicago. He was an Honorary Fellow in the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, inducted into the Carrier Aviation Hall of Fame in 1993, and enshrined in the U.S. Naval Aviation Hall of Honor in 1995. Admiral Stockdale holds 11 honorary degrees.