medal of honor for his leadership of american p.o.w.s and the stockdale paradox says this. the stockdale paradox says in a situation of great pain and danger and difficulty in chaos, he said as a leader one of the things that is essential for you to do is to maintain a 100% focus on the harsh reality of your situation. he says when you are in the of the difficult challenge it does you no good to sugarcoat the facts. it does you no good to fantasize about what might be. you have to maintain 100% focus on the harsh reality of your situation. but the paradox is, the paradox is at the same time, at the same time you are maintaining that focus on the harsh reality of your situation at the same time you have to find a way to maintain hope. now the harsh reality of the situation was for the men and women who i was visiting that day that they were not going to go back to their units. that was the harsh reality. and the question i think for all of us is how do we maintain hope? and i asked each one of them, tell me if you can't return to your unit right away, and what else you would