"He was held as a prisoner of war in the Hoa Lo prison for the next seven years. Locked in leg irons in a bath stall, he was routinely tortured and beaten. When told by his captors that he was to be paraded in public, Stockdale slit his scalp with a razor to purposely disfigure himself so that his captors could not use him as propaganda. When they covered his head with a hat, Stockdale beat himself with a stool until his face was swollen beyond recognition. He told them in no uncertain terms that they would never use him. When Stockdale heard that other prisoners were dying under the torture, he slit his wrists and told them that he preferred death to submission."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale
Yes folks, there is a standard to be maintained about how to behave when you are captured by the enemy. James Stockdale, who would later become a US admiral, demonstrated how in 1965. Its not all that long ago. In my judgement, the amount of pride, of toughness, of self-worth and of spine that has been lost by both Britain and America since that year is intolerably high.
'Royal Navy able seaman Arthur Batchelor, 20, said the suits they were given were "tacky", the CDs and DVDs do not work and there was no sign of his iPod portable media player, worth £160. "The iPod was really special to me as it was a gift," said Batchelor, an operator maintainer. He told the Daily Mirror that he ‘cried and cried like a baby’ in his cell, and one of the worst parts of his 10 days in captivity was being nicknamed ‘Mr Bean’ by his Iranian ‘tormentors’.'
I have no words to describe my disgust at the callowness and lack of a moral dimension in my fellow Britons. Shame on us.
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