My Main Takeaway: Rebellion
Normally a reader of fiction, I have never had a big appetite for biographies but, recently, I find a lot of inspiration from real-life stories. For one thing, the characters are (in general) relatable and if they aren't, the characters are normally portrayed in such a way that demonstrates the lengths of human capacities while still bringing a lens of realism to their personalities.
Louie was an incredible athlete and much of that physical prowess carried him to survival. But more than that, his struggles in childhood before WWII forged grit into his soul:
From earliest childhood, Louie had regarded every limitation placed on him as a challenge to his wits, his resourcefulness, and his determination to rebel. The result had been a mutinous youth. As maddening as his exploits had been for his parents and his town, Louie's success in carrying them off had given him the conviction that he could think his way around any boundary. Now, as he was cast into extremity, despair and death became the focus of his defiance. The same attributes that had made him the boy terror of Torrance were keeping him alive in the greatest struggle of his life.I feel that we all need a little defiance in our lives. Because nothing worth doing in life ever comes easy and we are always met with resistance and voices that tell us "you can't do it." We all need convictions and beliefs and the moxie to follow them. When the boat rocks and we fall overboard -- and get thrown to the sharks -- we get right back on and persevere because we believe in the directions we are headed.
Historical Roots
Having just visited Hawaii, it dawned on me while reading this book that WWII was only 75 years ago. Since then we've been through several conflicts with other nations and an average of 2.33 million military personnel on active duty per years from 1950-2000. "Of this average, 535,000 troops (23 percent of all military personnel) were deployed on foreign soil." That is a massive number! And yet, despite The War on Terror and the Iraq War during my adolescence, war and the suffering inflicted by war still feel so far removed from my experience. War, in my daily life, feels like a phantom notion.
I remember a high school assignment in which I interviewed a family friend who went through a Japanese internment camp during WWII and then peer reviewing an essay from a Caucasian friend (Richard) whose grandfather fought in the Pacific (versus the Japanese) in WWII. Richard's grandfather's experiences with the cruelty of the Japanese people was a stark contrast to the cruelty experienced by the Japanese Americans in internment camps. Ironic, isn't it, how cruelty can be brought out so easily when the stakes of nations are so high? And no matter what way we spin it, we are still living through those repercussions of the past. I live with a vague fear that an impending nuclear war will overturn everything I know, like it did for Louie Zamperini, and yet, it feels so unlikely to happen.
I suppose this is how I always feel after reading or watching war stories. But it's an important feeling to have - because it is a generous reminder of our past and suggests we should learn from the mistakes of generations before us. Still, millennials are just as prone to eerily similar mistakes in a world that constantly puts new twists on the circumstances surrounding it.
4.5 stars out of 5
Unbroken was easy to read through and well-written. I loved the anecdotes and historical context provided. Louie himself and his friends, Russell Allen "Phil" Phillips and William Frederick "Bill" Harris in particular, were fascinating subjects to me. I've been inspired to embrace suffering in whatever form it comes (mild as my suffering may be in comparison to the men in this book) to help forge my character and resilience.
Currently Reading: Bad Blood (John Carreyrou), The Road to Character (David Brooks)
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