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
The official documentary of POWs release February 12, 1972. Awarded First Place Gold at the US International Film Festival 1973.
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.
On September 9, 1965, Admiral James Stockdale’s A-4 Skyhawk jet was shot down in Vietnam. He was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese and spent the next seven years being tortured and subjected to unimaginable loneliness and terror. Fortunately, three years earlier, he was recommended a book. That book, he says, saved his life. After twenty years in the navy, Stockdale decided to go back to school. He enrolled in a two-year graduate program at
Vietnam Prisoners of War recall their experiences and the inspirational story of how they not only survived their imprisonment, but found growth and gratitude afterwards. Their stories are juxtaposed with those of recent Naval Academy Midshipmen who are facing the COVID pandemic and applying those same foundational values to their own experiences.
Larry Spencer was born and raised in Earlham, Iowa. He joined the Navy in 1963 and became an F-4 Phantom backseater. He was over the Gulf of Tonkin on February 18, 1966 when his plane was shot down. Larry spent the next 7 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. This story explains how he endured the uncertainty of his situation by keeping a positive attitude and above all, his faith.
