“I am a student of History”.
On September 9, 1965, Commander James Bond Stockdale was shot down over Vietnam by flak. Over the next seven and a half years, while imprisoned at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton”, Commander Stockdale distinguished himself by organizing others to resist their captors despite his enduring near daily beatings and torture. His back, legs, and shoulders were broken and rebroken. Faced with such pain, he never wavered; in fact, his purposeful disfigurement of his own body at one instance convinced his captors that he would rather die than give in. Publicly, Commander Stockdale was ultimately awarded the Medal of Honor after his release in 1973.
After his release, Stockdale published 4 books detailing his philosophical beliefs and their contribution to his being able to endure the horror of his years as a POW, including his education at the US Naval Academy and reading a book by the Stoic philosopher Epictetus that he had somehow managed to hide on his person while in captivity. Describing himself as a ‘student of history”, Stockdale later said in a speech that after he ejected from his aircraft he thought “I am leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus”. In essence, a central belief of Epictetus and his Stoic teachings is that we cannot control what happens to us, but we can control our happiness by how we react to what happens to us. This mindset equipped Stockdale to mentally endure the incredible ordeal of his years as POW.
There are 4 cardinal virtues in Stoicism: Wisdom, Courage, Justice, and Temperance. Stockdale exhibited all of these during his captivity, and his Medal of Honor citation notes his “valiant leadership and extraordinary courage.”
An embodiment of the Virtues he studied, Before passing away on July 5, 2005 at age 81, United States Navy Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale, the student who had become the teacher, wrote 4 books about the philosophy espousing 4 virtues that equipped him to survive his captivity after being shot from his A-4 Skyhawk.
Project Virtue = A-4 Skyhawk.
On September 9, 1965, Commander James Bond Stockdale was shot down over Vietnam by flak. Over the next seven and a half years, while imprisoned at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton”, Commander Stockdale distinguished himself by organizing others to resist their captors despite his enduring near daily beatings and torture. His back, legs, and shoulders were broken and rebroken. Faced with such pain, he never wavered; in fact, his purposeful disfigurement of his own body at one instance convinced his captors that he would rather die than give in. Publicly, Commander Stockdale was ultimately awarded the Medal of Honor after his release in 1973.
After his release, Stockdale published 4 books detailing his philosophical beliefs and their contribution to his being able to endure the horror of his years as a POW, including his education at the US Naval Academy and reading a book by the Stoic philosopher Epictetus that he had somehow managed to hide on his person while in captivity. Describing himself as a ‘student of history”, Stockdale later said in a speech that after he ejected from his aircraft he thought “I am leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus”. In essence, a central belief of Epictetus and his Stoic teachings is that we cannot control what happens to us, but we can control our happiness by how we react to what happens to us. This mindset equipped Stockdale to mentally endure the incredible ordeal of his years as POW.
There are 4 cardinal virtues in Stoicism: Wisdom, Courage, Justice, and Temperance. Stockdale exhibited all of these during his captivity, and his Medal of Honor citation notes his “valiant leadership and extraordinary courage.”
An embodiment of the Virtues he studied, Before passing away on July 5, 2005 at age 81, United States Navy Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale, the student who had become the teacher, wrote 4 books about the philosophy espousing 4 virtues that equipped him to survive his captivity after being shot from his A-4 Skyhawk.
Project Virtue = A-4 Skyhawk.
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