> Olympic runner, juvenile delinquent, WWII bombardier
> amazing number of interviews, research
> brother, Peter, sounds saintlike in his support of Louie
> parents unbelievably patient.....today Louie would be in a group home
> tremendously engaging writing, vivid
> met Hitler, placed sixth at Olympics in 3000 meter race
> "only the laundry knew how scared I was"
> so many died without making it to combat, you don't hear about it, 75% 35,000 in non-combat deaths, mechanical, weather
> Louie, Phil, Mac
> " the custom of the sea" - cannibalism @ sea
> difference between Pacific & Atlantic- less stormy
> "the doldrums"-
▶plural noun (the doldrums)
1 a state of stagnation or depression.
2 an equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean with calms, sudden storms, and light unpredictable winds.
> a dead body breathing......why didn't the guards just kill them, it is beyond me that humans can treat one another so cruelly, the raft was better than the POW camp
> amazing how quickly they became depressed when humiliated over time v. Maintaining their dignity for 2000 miles in a raft
> what is the similarity between Ofuna (sp?) and Guantanamo - "unarmed combatants"
> Explanations for brutality at POW camps:
Japanese: guards at bottom of power structure, " transfer of oppression"
Frederick Douglass: the most timid compensate w/ the greatest ferocity,
> "university of thievery", pow guerilla warfare, sabotaging everything they could, made them feel like soldiers again, some dignity
>p. 365 - "The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer"
>p.367 - "All he had left was his alcohol and his resentment, the emotion that, Jean Amery would write, 'nails every one of us onto the cross of his ruined past.' "
> bizarre that Billy Graham came into his life
>p.375 - 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 will save me, I will serve you forever."
>p.376 - "When he thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed hadf intervened to save him. He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man that the Bird had striven to make of him. In a single, silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness, had fallen away. That morning, he believed he was a new creation."
>p.379 - "At that moment, something shifted sweetly inside him. It was forgiveness, beautiful and effortless and complete. For Louie Zamperini, the war was over."
> still active into his tenth decade of life, "When I get old I'll let you know."
Review: "Seabiscuit", and it is true in "Unbroken". I was completely engrossed from the very beginning. Louie, the subject of this biography, is unbelievable. A runner, a juvenile delinquent, a bombardier, a POW, and apparently a man of many heroic qualities to boot. There Re so many angles one could discuss, that all I can say without spoiling the read is read it! Themes include: determination, the power of love and of faith, the depths to which human beings can sink, the power of dignity and the power of taking it away, and above all the tremendous resilience of the human being, both physically and spiritually!
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