Admiral Stockdale Passes(Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers!)
An
American hero.
During his 7½-year imprisonment, he was tortured numerous times, forced to wear vise-like heavy leg irons for two years and spent four years in solitary confinement. While imprisoned, he organized the prisoner culture in defiance of regulations forbidding prisoner communication and improvised a cohesive set of rules governing prisoner behavior. Codified in the acronym, BACK U.S. (Unity over Self), these rules gave prisoners a sense of hope, which many credited with giving them the strength to endure their ordeal.He became modestly famous unfortunately for his confused performance at the 1992 Vice Presidential Debate, which got some cheap laughs for some uninformed comedians. I remember realizing that this Dennis Miller guy was somebody to watch when he blasted those mocking Admiral Stockdale:
"Now I know (Stockdale's name has) become a buzzword in this culture for doddering old man, but let's look at the record, folks. The guy was the first guy in and the last guy out of Vietnam, a war that many Americans, including our present President, did not want to dirty their hands with.
The reason he had to turn his hearing aid on at that debate is because those f***ing animals knocked his eardrums out when he wouldn't spill his guts. He teaches philosophy at Stanford University, he's a brilliant, sensitive, courageous man. And yet he committed the one unpardonable sin in our culture: he was bad on television.
"Somewhere out there Paddy Chayefsky must be laughing his ass off. ..."Admiral James Stockdale, dead at age 81. If you're a fan of this blog, you probably recognize that medal he's wearing; it's the big one.
Michelle Malkin
has more.
Joust the Facts has a
nice post up on the subject, as does
Hube's Cube.
More tributes at
More than Loans and
Blackfive, and our old buddy Bill Faith at
Small Town Veteran.
