American naval officer who was shot down over Vietnam in 1965 and spent 7 years as the highest-ranking US prisoner of war — sustaining himself through Epictetus's Stoicism — becoming the defining real-world test case of Stoic philosophy's practical value.
Demonstrated that Stoicism is not merely a philosophical position but a survival technology — Epictetus's distinction between what is up to us and what is not was literally Stockdale's means of surviving torture, isolation, and uncertainty — making him the most powerful evidence for Stoic philosophy's practical truth.
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