Sybil Stockdale, American activist, co-founded the National League of Families (d. 2015)
Sybil Elizabeth Stockdale (née Bailey; November 25, 1924 – October 10, 2015) was an American campaigner for families of Americans missing in South East Asia.
Sybil was the founder and first national coordinator of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, a nonprofit organization that worked on behalf of American Vietnam-era Missing in Action and Prisoner of War Families. In her capacity as national coordinator for the League, she also served as its liaison to the White House and the Department of Defense. She was the wife of Vietnam War United States Navy pilot James Stockdale who became a prisoner of war (POW).
Stockdale is credited with helping to publicize the mistreatment of U.S. prisoners by North Vietnam and for helping to improve American policies concerning the treatment and handling of POW families. Stockdale is the recipient of the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest award given by the Department of the Navy to a citizen not employed by the Department. She is the only wife of an active-duty officer ever to have been so honored.Stockdale and her husband wrote the book In Love and War: the Story of a Family's Ordeal and Sacrifice During the Vietnam War (1984).Her husband, James Stockdale, was a recipient of the Medal of Honor for bravery in war, and after his release at the end of the war, was eventually promoted to vice admiral and by the time of his death in 2005 was one of the United States' most honored and decorated military veterans in the post-World War II era. He was present at the August 4, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, spent 71⁄2 years under torture as a POW in North Vietnam, later became President of The Citadel, and eventually ran for Vice-President of the United States with Ross Perot heading the ticket.