[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15791-15792]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   REMEMBERING ADMIRAL JIM STOCKDALE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I just want to take the floor briefly and 
comment on the passing of Admiral Jim Stockdale, one of the great 
heroes of our time.
  Jim Stockdale, when he passed away was a resident of San Diego, 
California, with his wonderful wife, Sybil.
  This occasion I think brought America's focus back to what Jim 
Stockdale accomplished and the enormity of his service to our country. 
I just thought it might be the right time to talk about that a little 
bit and about that extraordinary heroism that he demonstrated at a time 
when Americans had largely turned away from the operation in Vietnam.
  Jim Stockdale was shot down, and I know that my two colleagues, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), who shared a cell with Jim 
Stockdale in the Hanoi Hilton, and the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Cunningham) who was the most proficient Navy pilot of that period, in 
fact the only Navy ace in the Vietnam conflict, would want to be with 
me talking about Jim.
  But Jim Stockdale was shot down and was incarcerated in the Hanoi 
Hilton. At one point, the North Vietnamese wanted to use him for 
propaganda purposes. To keep them from being able to do that, he broke 
up a stool that was in his cell and beat his own face with the stool 
almost beyond recognition so that he had no value to the North 
Vietnamese in terms of being an image that they could broadcast for 
propaganda purposes.

[[Page 15792]]

  He was a leader in the true sense of the term. He led his men in that 
prison under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. He showed 
incredible heroism. In reviewing the exploits of American pilots, and 
they are numerous because one thing that America has always had is a 
great pool of individuals who are willing to go out and risk their 
lives. Ever since the days when we flew biplanes in World War I, to the 
current operations over Iraq and Afghanistan, we have always had 
extraordinary Americans who, as James Michener said in his book ``The 
Bridges of Toko-Ri,'' would fly off those little postage stamps that 
you call aircraft carriers and fly over and hit difficult targets, 
sometimes under enormous defensive fire, and then return back to that 
small carrier out at sea somewhere and try to make that extraordinarily 
difficult landing.

                              {time}  1500

  Michener asked, Where do we get such men? Where does America get such 
men? The answer is, we have always had them and they are sometimes guys 
like Randy Cunningham or Sam Johnson or, in this case, Jim Stockdale. 
Jim Stockdale when he was shot down really had the greatest challenge 
of his military career because that was a time when he had to be a 
leader, not in an aircraft that was going to return to a ship where he 
could live in some degree of comfort and convenience with his fellow 
pilots, but his war zone then was reduced to the small spaces that 
constituted the cells of the Hanoi Hilton.
  He so inspired his men and so extended himself and endured torture to 
the degree that his countrymen who had served with him were unanimous 
when he was recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor, they were 
unanimous in their support of Jim Stockdale for this Nation's highest 
honor, to go along with all of the other combat decorations that he 
had.
  I just thought, Mr. Speaker, it might be a good time to remind 
Americans what a great hero Jim Stockdale was and what a great model he 
is for our Nation.

                          ____________________