This speech by Jim Collins for The Drucker Institute talks about The Stockdale Paradox, which is rooted in the story of Admiral James Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking United States military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner-of-war camp during the height of the Vietnam War
Communist East German made propaganda film about American Prisoners of War held by the North Vietnamese.
Commander George Coker was one of the “Alcatraz 11,” a group considered by the North Vietnamese to be the resistance leadership, even though he was a junior officer. The Alcatraz 11 were moved from Hao Lo to a separate facility “Alcatraz” in 1967. Among them were Jim Stockdale and Bob Shumaker. Like Shumaker, Coker was a key communications link in the command structure at Hao Lo and the other Hanoi prisons. He also has the
The veteran graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1969. He spent 25 months as a prisoner of war (POW) at the Zoo, Plantation Gardens, and Hilton prisoner camps in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Ronald J. Webb was commissioned a 2d Lt in the U.S. Air Force on January 22, 1960, through the Air Force ROTC program while he attended Indiana University. He would serve five years in the Air Force as a navigator, before an opportunity allowed him to earn his pilot wings in June 1966. Webb served as an F-4 pilot with the 390th Tactical Fighter Squadron at DaNang AB, South Vietnam beginning in March 1967. On
American Veterans Center’s 2006 conference panel on Vietnam: The POW Experience, featuring Col. George “Bud” Day, Maj. Gen. Edward Mechenbier, Capt. Jack Fellowes, and Lt. Col. Anthony Marion Marshall.
