Louie's Athletic Career

Louie Zamperini was an Olympic athlete turned into a prisoner of war. Louie had a passion for running. He took his passion through school, and to the Olympics. His competitors knew he was big competition, so they tried everything they could to break him, even breaking his rib. Louie then joined the army to serve in WWII. Shortly after, he was captured by the Japanese, and held as a prisoner of war. Louie Zamperini, from Laura Hillenbrand’s book, called Unbroken, represents two strong character traits; perseverance, and optimism.

Laura Hillenbrand chose to present Unbroken as the life story of an Olympic runner who happened to be captured as a prisoner of war, rather than a man whose only story is that of the war. However, much of the focus is his experiences in several different Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, and how it affected the rest of his life. Hillenbrand walks the reader’s through Louie’s life to help them understand and empathize with what he went through. The time spent on his childhood and career is meant to get the

He burst through, sprinted to the lead…” (43). Although Louie was being beat up and tore down by the others, he still sprinted to the finish and he did not allow himself to lose which shows how he was insistent in winning. On page 105, Louie, Phil and Mac were on the rafts and “Louie was assessing the rafts when Mac suddenly began wailing, ‘Were going to die!’ Louie tried to reassure him” (105). This demonstrates how Louie was determined to survive on this raft and how he is capable of transferring his insistence onto others and spreading the motivation of never failing.

He needed strength to keep going throughout the story. When Louie was in the camps he needed strength through his beatings, and after he was rescued, images of the camps haunting him in his mind. One way Louie showed strength was on page 145 it read, “Louie was asked who’d win the war. ‘America.’... A fist connected with Louie’s nose, and he felt a crunch… He’d pushed the bones back in place with his fingers on the journey.” Louie was very strong, when he said that America would win he got punched in the nose, and his bones shattered. Although along the way he pushed the bones right back in place. Another way Louie showed strength was it said, “Louie walked up a long road, toward a complex of buildings. His whole body tingled. On the entrance archway were the words SUGAMO PRISON, and beyond it awaited Louie’s POW camp guards. Louie had returned to Japan” (271). Louie went to see the POW guards that had dehumanized him while he was in the camps, you would think that Louie would’ve hurt them but instead he was raptured and forgave them for what they had done.When Louie wanted to go meet the Bird, the book says, “‘Six hundred prisoner,’ he said. ‘Zamperini number one’... He called beatings ‘unavoidable.’ Told that Louie wished to come offer forgiveness” (280). Louie wanted to meet with the Bird, the most abusive guard in the camp, showing his strength that he kept throughout his time. Louie had strength during the camps and even more when

While reading the book Unbroken it is easy to become connected to the famous Louie Zamperini. In his early childhood Louie would run very often whether it was from his parents, girls or stealing, he soon gained an amazing became an olympian. Winning 8th place for his 5000m race after he finished training. After his new olympian life WW2 rolled in and ended his stardom of fame. Louie enlisted and became what people call a “bombardier”. His friend Phil and him live a tremendous trial through the war after being stranded in a lifeboat in the ocean for nearly 47 days. They get rescued, but only to become prisoners of war, the story then goes over his new life and the hardships he faced through each day.

An exercise that would later prove very useful on the raft. Louie would go on to win numerous awards, wristwatches and medals in his home town, succeeding in part to his determination to keep practicing and practicing until he was the best one in town. He persevered through many pains, injuries and disappointments with himself, he was amazed at himself but he knew he could do better. This would make him go onto the Olympics in 1936. Later we see Louie at war, an air force bomber. Sadly, for Louie he and his plane got shot down. Phil, Louie’s great friend, warned him “Prepare to crash” (Hillenbrand 118). The plane crashed, water was everywhere, Louie fainted. Louie felt hopeless, he felt like he was going to die; but, he wouldn’t give up he was determined to survive this. He fought the wires, put his feet on the frame and kicked it off, then he swam out. The plan sank away. He kept swimming towards the sky, he had reached the surface. Louie had survived, but his fight was far from over. On the raft Louie had to deal with a lot of troublesome issues. Mac was not in condition to help, there were limited rations that would later have been eaten by mac in a moment of panic, and few chances of survival. Many

When Louie first enlisted in the war, he was terrified of heights, but wanted to fly a plane. He had to overcome his fear to accomplish being able to fly. When Louie and his crew were flying their bomber named Superman, it was hit by enemy fire. Many of the crew members inside were injured, Louie did everything to try help them survive. Shortly after the attack, Louie’s plane crashed into the ocean. Three of the crewmen who were on the plane, including Louie, were the only ones who survived. 46 days passed, the men fought vigorously for their lives, with no food or water. With the willpower of trying to survive, they also had to survive the sharks and the Japanese bombers. When Louie finally reached land, he was nowhere near alive or healthy. After finding land, Louie was held as a POW never knowing if he was going to live to see the next day. “It was a secret interrogation center called Otuna, where “high value” captured men were housed in solitary confinement, starved, tormented, and tortured” (Hillebrand 198). He was dehumanized and constantly made fun of. Louie had to use his survival skills to continue on to be able to survive being a POW. “Confident that he was so clever, resourceful, and bold enough to escape any predicament, Louie was almost incapable of discouragement. When history carried him into war, this resilient optimism would define him” (Hillenbrand 7). Despite the challenges

Louie is strong because of his will to make it to the top. Louie was running in the Olympics when other runners were sabotaging him. “The man beside him swerved and stomped on his foot, impaling Louie’s foot with his spike. Then the man in

How can anyone be prepared, physically or mentally, for the challenges faced as a prisoner of war? In the novel, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Louie Zamperini faces a rough childhood and rigorous athletic career that in many ways conditioned him for the hurdles he would have to jump later in life. His childhood as a delinquent and training as an Olympic athlete were deciding factors in his will to survive and overcome.

Louie’s running taught him to power through adversity and to never cower in the difficulty of life. During the war, Louie was faced with many times that his resiliency shined through hard times. Louie was first faced with a task that would ultimately show how resilient he was when the Green Hornet had faced engine trouble, eventually crashing, “sensing the ocean coming up at the plane, he took a last glance at the twisting sky, then pulled the life raft in front of him and pushed his head into his chest,” (Hillenbrand 125). Louie was more than afraid during the feat, but instead of allowing the fear to take control of him, he realized that he had the will to live. He was not done living his life and decided to fight for it. Louie, later on when living his life on a raft floating adrift with Green Hornet airmen Phil and Mac, their bodies deteriorated to nothing but frail skin and bone. The men, especially Mac, wanted nothing more than to succumb to death, but Louie would not allow it. He tried his hardest to make the men foresee a life beyond war but, “Mac didn’t join the prognostication. He was slipping away,” (Hillenbrand 166). Louie’s resiliency to dying, as well as selflessly helping Mac helps to show the type of person he is, and how war slowly began to change him. It also helps Louie succeed in future troubling

During the second World War, an olympic record holder, Louie Zamperini, was one of the few men that got shot down into the ocean and was stranded for 47 days on a lonely, little raft. The great American hero we all have heard of didn’t start out like you would have thought. He was a young scoundrel who was influenced by his brother to run for something better than away from is problems. After years of running and going to the German Olympics to set the best lap run in the 5,000 meters, Louie had gone into the Air Force and had gotten into trouble at a Japanese POW camp after a crash. The book Unbroken, written by Laura Hillenbrand, expresses Louie’s life exceptionally well, especially

In war people are challenged both mentally and physically. When war occurs, it is quite frustrating for both civilians and soldiers. The soldiers are faced with a few more things than the people who are not fighting. Some people don’t even know there is a war happening. Louie was not so lucky. He was both a WWII soldier and prisoner of war. Prisoners of war are usually tortured by the people running the camp and sheltered from the rest of the world entirely. In the novel, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, Louie Zamperini was faced with many challenges which made him the intelligent and resilient person he was.

The part in life that shapes us as people tends not to be the challenges and hardships that people face but how they choose to go about them. For instance, when people are met with a challenge and they choose to back away from it, they are conditioning themselves to run away from the things they don’t like and therefore developing a personality trait that can be seen as cowardly. On the other hand when someone chooses to face that challenge head on they are building their character to not back down but to push on forward against the tide. Two people with the same event that happened to them in the past could turn out to be incredibly different people based on how they chose to deal with the event; such is the case with Ceecee and her dad Carl in the way they went about dealing with Ceecee’s mom. With the illness plaguing Ceecee’s

We are often exposed to face daily obstacles in our lifetime, however as much as these obstacles seem to have an appearance of bad luck, they can sometimes be turned out to help us in our advantage. These impediments often help us find another solution for complications that we have no power over, like my mother always said, “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.” Therefore, whenever I am involved in a specific hurdle I tend to make the best out of whatever I can. I believe that by having these certain complications in your life, you are taught to overpower these difficulties, become a stronger individual, and also to become independent.

I realize that the most capable physicians can heal because they have been sick and are able to fix because of their own brokenness. In other words, adversity builds character and changes people for the better. In my case, my disadvantaged upbringing has made me a better person, son, father and potentially a better public servant. After my parents divorced in 2000, my mother and I moved to Little Rock, Arkansas where we struggled to get by. Enduring that hardship with her changed me from an early age. Some nights I stayed at my best friend’s apartment, because we had no electricity. In a sense, this deprivation allowed me to mature and understand that in life you must sacrifice for a larger