IN: James Bond Stockdale (December 23, 1923 - July 5, 2005) was a United States Navy vice admiral and aviator awarded the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War, during which he was a prisoner of war for over seven years. Commander Stockdale was the senior naval officer held captive in Hanoi, North Vietnam. He had led aerial attacks from the carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) during the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident. On his next deployment, while Commander of Carrier Air Wing Sixteen aboard the carrier USS Oriskany (CV-34), his A-4 Skyhawk jet was shot down in North Vietnam on September 9, 1965.

On June 5, 1946 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the Naval Academy with the Class of 1947 due to the reduced schedule still in effect from World War II. Academically he ranked 130th among 821 graduates in his class. His first assignment was assistant gunnery officer aboard the destroyer minesweeper USS Carmick (DD-493) from June to October 1946. He next served aboard the USS Thompson (DD-627) from October 1946 to February 1947, the USS Charles H. Roan (DD-853) from February 1947 to July 1948, and the USS Deming (PCS-1392) from July 1948 to June 1949.  Stockdale was accepted for flight training in June 1949 and reported to Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida. He was designated a Naval Aviator at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas, in September 1950. He was next assigned for additional training at Naval Air Station Norfolk in Virginia from October 1950 to January 1951. In January 1954, he was accepted into the United States Naval Test Pilot School at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River base in Southern Maryland and completed his training in July 1954. There he tutored U.S. Marine Corps aviator John Glenn in math and physics. He was a test pilot until January 1957.  In 1959, the U.S. Navy sent Stockdale to Stanford University where he received a Master of Arts degree in international relations and comparative Marxist thought in 1962. Stockdale preferred the life of a fighter pilot over academia, but later credited Stoic philosophy with helping him cope as a prisoner of war.

when did he retire?

OUT: He was a test pilot until January 1957.


IN: Howard was born in Atlanta, to Dwight Sr. and Sheryl Howard, and into a family with strong athletic connections. His father is a Georgia State Trooper and serves as Athletic Director of Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a private academy with one of the best high school basketball programs in the country, while his mother played on the inaugural women's basketball team at Morris Brown College. Howard's mother had seven miscarriages before he was born. A devout Christian since his youth, Howard became serious about basketball around the age of nine; when in the eighth grade, he resolved to be selected as the number one pick in the NBA Draft one day.

Standing at 6 feet 11 inches tall (2.11 m) and weighing 265 pounds (120 kg), Howard plays the center position. Howard led the NBA in rebounding from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2013. Howard's rebounding is in part facilitated by his extraordinary athleticism; his running vertical leap was tested at 39.5 inches in 2011, rare for a player of his size. He demonstrated this skill in the 2007 Slam Dunk Contest, where he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m) high. The sticker showed an image of his own smiling face with a handwritten "All things through Christ Phil: 4:13", a paraphrase of Philippians 4:13. Howard's leaping reach of 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m) is the highest documented in NBA history, 1 inch (2.5 cm) higher than Shaquille O'Neal's previous record of 12 ft 5 in (3.78 m). As of April 2013, Howard's career average of 12.9 rebounds per game (in the regular season) ranked 12th in NBA history.  Howard's abilities and powerful physique have drawn attention from fellow NBA All-Stars. Tim Duncan once remarked in 2007: "[Howard] is so developed... He has so much promise and I am glad that I will be out of the league when he is peaking." Kevin Garnett echoed those sentiments: "[Howard] is a freak of nature, man... I was nowhere near that physically talented. I wasn't that gifted, as far as body and physical presence." Subsequent to a game in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia 76ers swingman Andre Iguodala said: "It's like he can guard two guys at once. He can guard his guy and the guy coming off the pick-and-roll, which is almost impossible to do... If he gets any more athletic or jumps any higher, they're going to have to change the rules." As early as December 2007, ESPN writer David Thorpe declared Howard to be the most dominant center in the NBA.  While many sports pundits have been rating Howard as one of the top young prospects in the NBA since 2006, Howard has some weaknesses in his game. Offensively, his shooting range remains limited; he is also mistake-prone, having led the NBA in total number of turnovers in the 2006-07 season. Like many centers, he has a low free throw conversion percentage. As a result, he is often a target of the Hack-a-Shaq defense and is annually among the league leaders in free throw attempts. During the 2007-08 regular season, Howard led the NBA with 897 free throw attempts while shooting only 59% from the free throw line. Also in that season, outside of layups and dunks, his shooting percentage was only 31.6%. In the 2008-09 season, he led the NBA again with 849 free throw attempts and in 2009-10, he was second in the NBA with 816.

What did he do during the slam dunk contest?

OUT:
he completed an alley oop dunk from teammate Jameer Nelson while slapping a sticker onto the backboard at 12 ft 6 in