From: b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (Stephen Tice)
Subject: Re: Berlet vs. Dallas Morning News 
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: The University of Texas at Arlington
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 14:10:00 GMT

NLG Civil Liberties Committee <cberlet@igc.apc.org> writes...

>After reading more Rockford publications, I would like to add anti-abortion,
>anti-feminist, and homophobic to the list of Rockford issues. They also
>seem to think we need tougher divorce laws and that women should 
>return to the "traditional" role as housewife. Some of their articles
>have praised the leaders of various European neo-fascist movements such as
>the Italian MSI and the Lombard League. Real nice place for a patriot.
> 
>-Chip

Dallas Morning News (March 31st) "Ex-POWs praise Stockdale as hero"

	...[Stockdale] was probably the strongest, most exemplary
	leader of the whole North Vietnamese POW evvironment,"
	said George Coker, who also survived imprisonment with
	Mr. Stockdale at the Hoa Lo prison in downtown Hanoi,
	the so called Hanoi Hilton. "He's an exceptional character.
	He's got integrity, strength, courage, strong moral fiber. 
	He's just a great leader."

	...Mr. Stockdale, the only son of an Illinois toilet and
	lavatory manufacturer, graduated from the U.S. Naval
	Academy with former President Jimmy Carter in 1947. He
	was more conservative than his famous classmate and would
	later publicly criticize Mr. Carter's handling of the Iran
	hostage crisis.

	...In graduate school in political science at Stanford
	University, Mr. Stockdale was a serious student of philosophy.
	His favorite philospher is the Greek stoic Epictetus.

	...In 1987, NBC made a movie of the book, [JBS's _In Love
	and War_, cowritten with his wife /Sdt], with James Woods
	playing Mr. Stockdale and Jane Alexander playing his wife
	of 45 years, Sybil.

Conservative yes, and yet Jim Stockdale left the board of Rockford
several years back because of it's "pro-life" agenda according 
to his wife Sybil, (as I conveyed in my last commentary). Jim 
Stockdale sure doesn't sound like a fundamentalist to me. 

Nor a proponent of "neo-fascism" Chip as you imply above. As to
being a patriot, I am firmly convinced of that:

Dallas Morning News (March 31st), same article:

	Navy Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale spent 2,714 days
	in the Hanoi Hilton... He was tortured 15 times, in
	solitary confinement for four years, in leg irons for
	two.

	"I've had my leg broken twice. It still doesn't bend."
	said Mr. Stockdale. "I can't raise my left arm."	

	He was a wreck, but his resistance became legendary. 
	At one point, the North Vietnamese planned to force
	him to make a film telling fellow prisoners to cooperate.
	Mr. Stockdale tried to show their coercion by shaving 
	his head, then using a wooden stool to beat his face.

	"Eventually he decided that rather than make this
	film, he would kill himself. He was willing to give
	it all up rather than make this film. He broke a 
	window, stabbed himself with the glass," said Harry
	Jenkins, who spent more than seven years as a prisoner
	of war with Mr. Stockdale, now 68. His suicide attempt
	failed but the film was not made.

	...He was one of the "Alcatraz Gang" -- a group of 11
	prisoners of war who were separated because they were
	leaders of the prisoner's resistance.

	...he recieved the Medal of Honor for his suicide attempt
	-- but was also known as a compassionate man who avoided
	judging others.

	"He said, `It's not Christian nor American to hound a
	man to his grave,'" said Mr. Jenkins. "He recognized
	some weren't as tough as others. He recognized not
	everybody would kill themselves first."

So yes Chip, I reckon Jim Stockdale is guilty of patriotism, and has
served hard-time to prove it. Not as a "patriot" the way a lot of hate
groups are described, but as a true patriot -- one who has lived for,
or would die for his countrymen in their time of need. What greater 
"love of country" can be shown than this?

-- Stephen Tice