12 / CHRONICLESnEPICTETUS IN UNIFORM by James B. StockdalenIwas all of 38 years old when I first encountered the classicntext that would influence my life. The year was 1962, thenbook was Epictetus’ Enchiridion, and we got off to a verynunpromising start together. I could not bring myself to seenhow what that old coot Epictetus had to say bore anynrelationship to my life as a 20th-century technocrat.nI had so wanted to have this book make an immediatenpositive impact. It had been a gift of special meaning,nbecause it had come from a man, 16 years my senior,nwhom I had grown to idolize. He was Philip Rhinelander,nprofessor of philosophy at Stanford University, where I wasnthen finishing two years of graduate school. He had beennmy mentor for most of a year when, during my very lastntutorial session, he had taken down the little worn andnmarked-up personal volume from a high shelf in his studynand said: “Here is a book that a man in your professionnshould own. Keep it and read it from time to time.”nMy profession happened to be that of a career navalnofficer, more specifically at that time an experienced fighternpilot about to return to sea duty to command a carrier-basednsquadron flying the navy’s latest supersonic jets. What did Inhold in common with a first-century Stoic who went alongnpage after page reciting epigrams like these?nMen are disturbed not by things but by the viewnthey take of them.nDo not be concerned with things that are beyondnyour power.nDemand not that events should happen as younwish, but wish them to happen as they do and younwill go on well.nMid-career graduate education is not uncommon in militarynlife, though it is somewhat rare to have it in a fieldnentirely separate from one’s immediate concerns. Eor nearlyn20 years I had been on the operational and technical side ofnthings—an engineering degree from Annapolis, with shorenduty as an engineering test pilot bracketed by flying tours inncarrier-based squadrons. I was now to return to such annaeronautical life after this sabbatical devoted to the study ofnpolitical science, economics, and international relationsnwith as much of the humanities as I could pack in. The ideanwas that I might be so fortunate as to achieve an eventualnhigh command and need the broader base for policymaking,ndiplomatic and strategic planning duties.nI and others have found that a mid-life second education,nparticularly one heavily salted with introspective subjectsnlike classical philosophy, can precipitate an unexpectednpost-graduate wrinkle, an aftershock which develops as onenreturns to life in the particular—in my case, the world ofncutting-edge technology, expediency, and not-infrequentnbureaucratic infighting. Throughout the first six or eightnJames Stockdale is a Senior Fellow at The HoovernInstitution and author, with Sybil Stockdale, of In Lovenand War (Harper & Row).nnnmonths after I arrived back on the operational scene, Inunderwent a kind of transitional decompression in which Ingroped for a now-satisfying stable platform of philosophicalnreference from which I could confidently call my shots. Itnwasn’t because I was in a new environment that I had tonscrew my head on a new way; it was simply that I now sawncontradictions where before I had seen only order. I had tonhook my life to a big idea if I was to stay the course.nIt was now 1963. Throughout 1961 and 1962 at Stanford,nmy mind had been awhirl with a whole new shoppingnlist of big ideas. Rhinelander’s two-term philosophy coursenin “The Problems of Good and Evil” had taken me fromnThe Book of Job to Camus, with more than a smattering ofnPlato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Kant, Pascal, Leibnotz, Spinoza,nDescartes, and Hume along the way. But now as I lednmy squadron on and off the carrier decks in Southeast Asiannwaters, halfway between war and peace, I gravitated towardna more self-supporting, independent, ethical balance wheelnas I suffocated in the moral dilemmas that I could feelnclosing in on us all. There, my last-found model, Epictetusnand his Stoicism, who by then I had made myself betternunderstand, struck the very chord of self-respect and personalnautonomy that I so needed to keep my mind clear, tonbreak through the clutter of false hope, of wishful thinking,nand to cut myself free.nHad I been an ancient Stoic, I would have expressednwhat roughly went through my mind, something like this:n”Just as in the universe, where the mind of God isnimmanent and indwelling and moves in a manner selfsufficientnand self-ruling, so I as the leader of pilots in timesnof unexpected change, frequent confusion and occasionalnduplicity in high places, can do no better than to interposenmyself between those pilots and our bumbling bureaucracynas their ultimate guide and protector. I must cast offnconcern for all things not within my power. Rememberingnthat as I aim for such goals, I must not undertake them bynacting moderately, but must let go from within myself thatnenigmatic mixture of conscience and egoism called honor,nand not hesitate to make exceptions to operational rules andnprocedures as necessary to follow my eternal guides of dutynand personal responsibility.”nWith such an outlook, those eerie years of nationalndecision, 1963 and 1964, were not times of great soulsearchingnfor me. One big soul search, embracing Stoicism,nand I was off and running; once I had made up my mindnnot to be concerned with things beyond my power, I was nonlonger hung up on where I began and where I left off innthese enigmatic conditions. The conditions were tailormadenfor Stoicism, and in my new-found freedom, tailormadenfor me. I came to love the life I lived during thosenyears; in many ways it was unique in modern militarynhistory. Washington was determined to call every shot andncontrol every detail, and their operations were compoundingnand stumbling over one another; normal business wasncrowded out and chaos frequentiy reigned. When caught innthe crossfire of conflicting imperatives that governed secretnmissions deep into places like Laos, my conscience coun-n