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
Excerpts from an Oct. 20, 2019 interview with Col. Ken Cordier, a former United States Air Force pilot who was an American prisoner of war in North Vietnam for 6 years, 3 months and 2 days during the Vietnam War. This is part of the Robert H. Jackson Center’s Defenders of Freedom project. For further information see www.roberthjacskon.org.
May 24, 1973: John Wayne thanks the President for his services to his country and warmly welcomes America’s POWs home at a historic White House dinner.
In the late 1960s, POW/MIA wives bucked government protocol and challenged the traditional role of “military wife.” These courageous women led by Sybil Stockdale on the West Coast, Jane Denton, Louise Mulligan, and Phyllis Galanti on the East Coast and later Helene Knapp in the Interior West organized to form the National League of POW/MIA Families. The women worked with Congress and the Nixon administration to demand accounting for their husbands and pursue their safe
Robert Certain took part in the massive aerial battle that effectively ended the Vietnam War. But it left a mark — the death of half his bomber crew, enemy capture, imprisonment and making his way as a Warrior in the peaceful calling of public ministry.
