James Stockdale: Epictetus in a Vietnamese Prison

In 1962 Commander James Stockdale was a fighter pilot studying philosophy. This is the story of how one book from that year helped him survive seven and a half years as a prisoner of war, and why his method still matters to ordinary people. One day his professor, Philip Rhinelander, pulled a worn little volume from a high shelf. It was a handbook by Epictetus, a Stoic who had been born into slavery. Rhinelander told Stockdale that a man in his profession should own it. Stockdale doubted that a first-century slave had much to say to a modern naval officer. Even so, he spent his last months there memorizing its epigrams. Then he took it to sea and kept it on his bedside table aboard his carrier. Would an ancient handbook hold up when the war came?