James Stockdale Quotes

James Bond "Jim" Stockdale was born in Abingdon, Illinois, USA. He was an American Navy vice admiral and aviator awarded the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War, during which he was an American prisoner of war for over seven years. He studied at Monmouth College and US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He earned a BS degree from the Naval Academy in 1946. In 1959, the U.S. Navy sent Stockdale to Stanford University where he received a Master of Arts degree in international relations and comparative Marxist thought in 1962. He had led aerial attacks from the carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) during the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident. He served as President of the Naval War College from October 1977 until he retired from the Navy in 1979. He was a candidate for Vice President of the United States in the 1992 presidential election, on Ross Perot's independent ticket. He wrote several books include: A Vietnam experience, In Love and War(with Sybil Stockdale), Courage Under Fire, and Thoughts of a philosophical fighter pilot.