Eight years ago during the presidential election, when another up-and-coming businessman was running for the White House, America briefly encountered James Stockdale, and he didn’t make a good impression.
Stockdale was an old friend of independent candidate Ross Perot, who asked him to join his running mate for vice president. Stockdale agreed, and then he was pretty much alone. He only found out a week before he was going to be in the vice presidential debate. Perot and Stockdale had never had a conversation to discuss political positions.
Stockdale began the discussion with the rhetorical question: “Who am I? Why am I here?” Unfortunately, he never got a chance to give a satisfactory answer. The viral moment became a running joke about a confused old man being thrust onto the national stage. At one point, Stockdale missed a question because the volume on his hearing aid was off.
Who was Stockdale? Ironically, he had a much more glamorous resume than his opponents, Dan Quayle and Al Gore. A Navy vice admiral and fighter pilot, Stockdale was shot down over North Vietnam in 1965 and later spent more than seven years in the notorious Hoa Lo Prison (also known as the “Hanoi Hilton”).
As the highest-ranking Navy POW, Stockdale Created a code of conduct He set forth a commandment for his fellow prisoners, summarized by the acronym BACK US: don’t give in, don’t stand in the air, don’t admit guilt, never kiss goodbye, and put unity before self. It also had a morale boost, giving the prisoners a sense of dignity and purpose by evoking their willingness to not help the enemy even under torture.
Perhaps no one followed the rules more strictly than Stockdale himself. He spent long periods in solitary confinement and shackles, endured beatings, malnutrition, and denial of medical care. When his captors asked him to appear on television as an example of how well prisoners were being treated, Stockdale hit himself in the face with a chair and slashed his scalp with a razor.
We all know the importance of maintaining a positive attitude in times of crisis, but optimism can also be devastating. Interview Together with author Jim Collins, Stockdale points out that the first fellow prisoners to falter were the optimists, those who persisted in believing rescue was imminent until they were repeatedly disappointed. Those who gave in to complete despair also did not survive.
The key, according to Stockdale, is to find a middle ground: “Never confuse the faith that you will ultimately prevail — a faith that you can never lose — with the discipline to face whatever the brutal facts of your present reality may be.”
In light of the past few years, here are some brutal facts we may be facing: our leaders do not have our best interests at heart, our media seeks to incite rather than inform, and our state institutions are increasingly dysfunctional.
In other words, help is not coming. This is very important to remember, especially during a presidential election. A Trump victory would certainly be the best outcome we could hope for, but we also need to prepare for a loss. We should do what we can to help him win, without wasting our energy on things we can’t control.
That energy would be better spent strengthening ourselves, our families, and our communities. After all, the true answers to the two questions Stockdale posed so long ago have always been close at hand:
