As said by the three-time Olympic champion, Gail Devers, “Sometimes we fall, sometimes we stumble, but we can’t stay down. We can’t allow life to beat us down. Everything happens for a reason, and it builds character in us, and it tells us what we are about and how strong we really are when we didn’t think we could be that strong.” In the non-fiction book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Louie Zamperini’s unrelenting strength in the face of unimaginable horrors emulates the words spoken by Devers. Despite being subjected to constant torture and starvation in a Japanese POW camp for two years, Louis remained resilient. Even when he returned home, where the battle did not yet end, Louie endured, unwilling to break.
In the beginning of Louie’s …show more content…
On a rescue mission, Louie’s plane stalled and crashed into the Pacific, resulting in the deaths of several crew members; everyone except for Louie and two other men, Russell Allen Phillips and Francis McNamara. After forty-seven days adrift on the raft, the Japanese captured Louie and Phil. They held them initially on an atoll in the Marshall Islands, where the men received food and minor medical attention. Soon after, Louie and Phil moved to a camp called Kwajalein, commonly known as Execution Island. The Japanese, grasping for any information to use against the Americans, began brutally interrogating Louie and Phil upon their arrival. Louie suffered through these interrogations, yet in spite of this, he persevered. When Louie’s interrogators asked him the layout a B-24E model, Louie feigned ignorance, and claimed he didn’t know. When they handed Louie a map of Hawaii, Louie gave in. However, “As they celebrated, they had no idea that the ‘bases’ that Louie had identified were the fake airfields he had seen when tooling around Hawaii with Phil. If the Japanese bombed there, the only planes they would hit would be made of plywood” (194). After Kwajalein came Ofuna, where Louie suffered the majority of his two years of imprisonment. During this period of Louie’s life, his resilience showed through brighter than ever. In Ofuna, Louie met Mutsuhiro …show more content…
After this extremely traumatic experience, Louie dealt with violent Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: “He was drinking heavily, slipping in and out of flashbacks, screaming and clawing through nightmares, lashing out in fury at random moments” (370). In this time of Louie’s life, rage dominated his mind. Louie searched for a way to reclaim the humanity that had been robbed of him in the two years he spent in Japan, and eventually decided the way to do so was to kill the Bird: “Louie had no idea what had become of the Bird, but he felt sure that if he could get back to Japan, he could hunt him down. This would be his emphatic reply to the Bird’s unremitting effort to extinguish his humanity: I am still a man” (361). Though Louie never did relay his plan to kill the Bird to anyone, his behavior continued to reflect his anger. Louie’s wife, Cynthia Applewhite, eventually resorted to begging Louie to attend a service by evangelist Billy Graham. Because of Cynthia’s insistence and Billy Graham’s sermon, Louie was reminded of a promise made on the raft in the middle of the Pacific: “It was a promise thrown at heaven, a promise he had not kept, a promise he had allowed himself to forget until just this instant: If you save me, I will serve you forever. And then, standing under a circus tent on a clear night in
In the beginning of Louie’s …show more content…
On a rescue mission, Louie’s plane stalled and crashed into the Pacific, resulting in the deaths of several crew members; everyone except for Louie and two other men, Russell Allen Phillips and Francis McNamara. After forty-seven days adrift on the raft, the Japanese captured Louie and Phil. They held them initially on an atoll in the Marshall Islands, where the men received food and minor medical attention. Soon after, Louie and Phil moved to a camp called Kwajalein, commonly known as Execution Island. The Japanese, grasping for any information to use against the Americans, began brutally interrogating Louie and Phil upon their arrival. Louie suffered through these interrogations, yet in spite of this, he persevered. When Louie’s interrogators asked him the layout a B-24E model, Louie feigned ignorance, and claimed he didn’t know. When they handed Louie a map of Hawaii, Louie gave in. However, “As they celebrated, they had no idea that the ‘bases’ that Louie had identified were the fake airfields he had seen when tooling around Hawaii with Phil. If the Japanese bombed there, the only planes they would hit would be made of plywood” (194). After Kwajalein came Ofuna, where Louie suffered the majority of his two years of imprisonment. During this period of Louie’s life, his resilience showed through brighter than ever. In Ofuna, Louie met Mutsuhiro …show more content…
After this extremely traumatic experience, Louie dealt with violent Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: “He was drinking heavily, slipping in and out of flashbacks, screaming and clawing through nightmares, lashing out in fury at random moments” (370). In this time of Louie’s life, rage dominated his mind. Louie searched for a way to reclaim the humanity that had been robbed of him in the two years he spent in Japan, and eventually decided the way to do so was to kill the Bird: “Louie had no idea what had become of the Bird, but he felt sure that if he could get back to Japan, he could hunt him down. This would be his emphatic reply to the Bird’s unremitting effort to extinguish his humanity: I am still a man” (361). Though Louie never did relay his plan to kill the Bird to anyone, his behavior continued to reflect his anger. Louie’s wife, Cynthia Applewhite, eventually resorted to begging Louie to attend a service by evangelist Billy Graham. Because of Cynthia’s insistence and Billy Graham’s sermon, Louie was reminded of a promise made on the raft in the middle of the Pacific: “It was a promise thrown at heaven, a promise he had not kept, a promise he had allowed himself to forget until just this instant: If you save me, I will serve you forever. And then, standing under a circus tent on a clear night in