Early Life and Career
Stockdale was born in Abingdon, Illinois, the son of Mabel Edith (née Bond) and Vernon Beard Stockdale. Following a brief period at Monmouth College, he entered the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in 1943. In June 1946 he graduated with the class of 1947 due to the reduced schedule still in effect from World War II. Academically he ranked 130th among 821 graduates in his class.
Shortly after graduating, Stockdale reported to Naval Air Station Pensacola, in Florida, for flight training. In 1954, he was accepted into the United States Naval Test Pilot School at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River base in Southern Maryland. It was there that he tutored a young Marine aviator named John Glenn in math and physics.
In 1959 the Navy sent Stockdale to Stanford University where he received a masters degree in international relations. Stockdale preferred the life of a fighter pilot over academia, but later credited Stoic philosophy with helping him cope as a prisoner of war.
Read more about this topic: James Stockdale
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or career:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“If you are willing to inconvenience yourself in the name of discipline, the battle is half over. Leave Grandma’s early if the children are acting impossible. Depart the ballpark in the sixth inning if you’ve warned the kids and their behavior is still poor. If we do something like this once, our kids will remember it for a long time.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)
“The bitter sea of life is boundless; if one but turns around, there’s the shore.”
—Chinese proverb.
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)