Stockdale on Stoicism 20

In all those years, we probably had no more than 24 hours, one-on-one together. But neither of us ever broke the code of an unvaryingly strict "line of duty" relationship. 

He never tricked me, always played it straight, and I begged no mercy. I admired that in him, and I could tell he did in me. 

And when people say: "He was a torturer, didn't you hate him?" I say, like Solzhenitsyn, to the astonishment of those about me, "No, he was a good soldier, never overstepped his line of duty." 

By that time, I had learned that fear and guilt are the real pincers that break men's wills. I would chant under my breath as I was marched to interrogation, knowing that I must refuse to comply, and take the ropes: "Your eyes must show no fear; they must show no guilt." 

The North Vietnamese had learned never to take a prisoner "downtown"—to the payoff for what our whole treatment regime was about: public propaganda exploitation—unless he was truly intimidated, unless they were sure he felt fear. 

Their threats had no meaning unless you felt fear. They had suffered the political damage of several, including myself, who had acted up, spoken up, and blurted out the truth to the hand-picked audience of foreigners at the press conference. 

Book IV of Discourses: "When a man who has set his will neither on dying nor upon living at any cost, comes into the presence of the tyrant, what is there to prevent him from being without fear? Nothing." 

—from James B. Stockdale, The Stoic Warrior's Triad