(Ari and Lexi)
On September 9, 1965 Commander James Bond Stockdale took off from the air carrier USS Oriskany in his A-4 Skyhawk jet and was shot down over North Vietnam. He remained a Viet Cong prisoner of war at the Hanoi Hilton until February 12, 1973.
During his seven and a half year imprisonment, he was regularly tortured and denied medical care. Four years into his captivity, he was shackled in a shower stall where he was subjected to incessant torture. When he was told that he and his fellow POWs were to be paraded in public for North Vietnamese propaganda, he slit his head with a razor and beat his face to a bloody pulp with stool so they could not use him.
Echo of Hope 