James Bond Stockdale (his middle name was his mother’s maiden name), joined the US Naval Academy as a 20-year-old in 1943. After serving on several vessels, he was accepted for flight training in 1949, completing it in 1954. In 1959 he was sent to Stanford University as a 38-year-old naval pilot to study for a Master’s Degree in international relations.
Stockdale became interested in philosophy, and especially in the ancient philosopher Epictetus, in his final year at university in 1962. He had been in the navy for more than 20 years already and had, he recalled, scarcely left the cockpit. Encouraged by a professor, Stockdale read the Enchiridion of Epictetus (a handbook of stoic behaviour written in the first century BCE) and it would be a profound influence on his thoughts and deeds for the rest of his life. No matter where he was stationed, by his bedside were a copy of Epictetus, Xenophon’s Memorabilia (a more accessible account of Socrates’ life than in Plato’s dialogues), and Homer’s epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. He credited Epictetus with changing his life and with his survival.
This story is from the Issue 106, 2022 edition of History of War.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Issue 106, 2022 edition of History of War.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
