Louis Zamperini Research Paper

In the book Born to Run, McDougall’s purpose is to inform and educate the reader in matters of the running world. He seeks to prove that running can be an inspirational activity in physical fitness and doesn’t require injury as part of your running journey. “And all because in January 2001 I asked my doctor this: ‘How come my foot hurts?’” (8). While McDougall’s initial purpose was to seek out if humans were born to run “…why should every other mammal on the planet be able to depend of its legs except us?”(13), he later develops his purpose into a more complex

Chapters 1–5 introduce an average boy who would become a remarkable man. Born in 1917, Louie Zamperini was the child of Italian immigrants. Growing up in Torrance amidst poverty and anti-Italian bias, Louie got in the habit of running outside the law. He started smoking when he was 5 years old and drinking when he was 8. He stole anything he wanted—mostly food, money, and whatever else he could find. He ran small scams and vandalized property. Pete, Louie’s older brother, became concerned.

Louie Zamperini is the type of person that has been through a lot of pain and happiness, making Louie much more complex of a person than most people. Louie is a person who started off as mischievous and then turned that into power for running, and won a lot races breaking records. He went to join the Air Force for the army, and then one day his plane crashed into the ocean and only him and 2 others survived the crash. He was next the found by the Japanese and was sent to a POW camp, and was a victim of many war crimes. The book “Unbroken ” by Laura Hillenbrand, shows Louie’s two character traits that most defines Louie are tenacious and fractious.

It was apparent, throughout the story, that Louie was a survivor. There were countless events throughout the story in which Louie´s ability to survive is seen clearly. One of these occurred when Louie clocked the fastest time for the mile in NCAA history. Louie was able to do this despite being spiked, clubbed, and trapped from moving forward in the race. This is apparent when Hillenbrand writes, “He burst through, blew past the race leader, and, with his shoe torn open, shins streaming blood, and chest aching, won easily”(44). Another example of his survival trait appearing strongly in the story occurred in the raft. After lying in a raft for weeks, Louie was still

Louie’s athletic career definitely prepared him for what he would encounter in the war. Through his extensive training and unprecedented success, Louis gained a wide variety of traits and abilities that can be predicted to be essential for him as he faces the challenges of war. One obvious and major way that his athletic career prepared him for the war was by increasing his physical ability. In the novel, Louie is a long-distance runner in the 1936 Olympics, in which he placed eighth (Hillenbrand 35). Through his all encompassing physical training, Louie became extremely competent in physical endurance and strength. As it can easily be assumed, having good endurance can prove to be life-saving in war, especially in Louie was ever in a situation

Louie disliked running, but he was good at it. He did it for the attention of winning. Louie’s father gets into an argument with him and he ends up running away from home. He eventually comes home and focuses all his time on running and beating records. Running seems to be the answer to his problems because now he is being invited to events and the neighborhood no

Louis Zamperini, the main character of Laura Hillenbrand’s biography Unbroken, led a promising running career in his life prior to his military service and captivity. In 1931, Louis was encouraged to join the Torrance High School track team by his older brother, Pete. Running came easily to Louis, and became a force to be reckoned with rapidly in the racing world, dropping his mile time to just under five minutes by 1933. He gave some of the fastest men in the country a scare at the 1936 Olympic Trials when he nearly beat Don Lash, America’s fastest runner of the 5,000 meter race, and proceeded to compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Aside from the resounding fame that his running career provided him, it also instilled discipline, dedication, and astounding willpower that followed him through his life.

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 the biography, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, a young boy named Louis Zamperini’s life revolved around running and training for the Olympics. Running had a huge impact on his life and ended up changing how he would act. In his early days, Louis was an irresponsible and rebellious kid. Running would later force him to buckle down and focus on running and training. Many people influenced Louis, but only one made the biggest impact on his life. That person is Pete Zamperini, Louis’ older brother.

Consequently, Louie looked up to his brother Pete, who almost never got in trouble: ‘’Pete never got caught’’ (8). Pete had been in athletics, and wanted Louie to join also; in an incident involving Louie letting people into a basketball game for free, the principal banned Louie from athletics for a time: ‘’When basketball season began, there was an inexplicable discrepancy between the number of ten-cent tickets sold and the considerably larger number of kids in the bleachers’’ (13). When Pete talked to the coach, he convinced the principal to give Louie another chance. This event had an enormous impact on Louie’s life. Once joining track, he used his determination to do good in school so that he could participate in the sport. Determination in his sports life led Louie to evolve as a man, and make him a genuinely hard worker. This hard work and determination would later lead him to the Olympics in Germany, working hard like a man getting revenge and using all his tools to get to his goal. This occurred before World War 2, so the conflict would not begin until later on. This moment could be considered another crucial part in Louie’s life, as the event foreshadows the war that would lead Louie to become stranded in the Pacific Ocean and later tortured as a

Imagine what it would take to one day be competing as an Olympic athlete, soon after find yourself stranded on a life raft for forty-seven days, only to be captured as a prisoner of war (POW) for the next twenty-five months. This is exactly what Louis Zamperini did and he lived through it all too be a visionary and ethical leader until the day he died. In this paper I will explain how through all ups and downs of Zamperini’s life he used the elements of adaptability and transactional leadership behavior of contingent rewards. I will also explain how he was an ethical leader by showcasing his resiliency and how his actions fit into the Air Force Core Value of service before self. I will also explain Zamperini’s actions relate to a few instances of me showing similar traits in my actions. First I will explain how Zamperini acted as a visionary leader.

In the biography Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, a troubled adolescent boy named Louis Zamperini revolves his life around his running career. Starting at such a young age, running had many impacts on Louie’s life. The high demand of training kept Louie distracted from making unintelligent choices he had previously been making. Running changed the young teenager he was and the man he was going to become.

The Zamperini He survived 47 days of being stranded in the Pacific, no food, no water. Louie, a former italian olympian, was progressing to compete in the olympics in Japan. War interfered with the olympics and they got cancelled; Louie had to register for the military. Throughout his military experiences, he got in a plane crash, got stranded, then became a prisoner of war of Japan, and survived. From the book, Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand, the two words that define Louie the most are that he is determined and brave.

Louie was always getting in trouble in and out of school. Louie wasn’t aware of what smoking and drinking was doing to him, but his brother Pete was. On page 15, when the author explains why Pete got Louie into running, Pete said that he did it so Louie would stay out of trouble. The fact that Pete was able to get Louie into running was pretty amazing, considering what Louie had already gone through. Louie found a love for running, and stuck with it after wanting to quit multiple times. What Pete did for his brother probably saved his life, and I’m sure Louie probably knows that as well. Once Louie really started to get into running, he never wanted to do anything but run, and his goal was to make it to the Olympics. On page 17, “ When Louie set out to see what training

During the time Louis Zamperini served in the military, World War II was at a devastating point, affecting millions of Americans and others throughout the world. At this time, World War II was one of the most tragic wars, with hardship, pain, trials and triumphs. This brave Army Air Force bomber proved that there were many heroes and some of their stories longed to be shared. In May of 1943, Louis Zamperini's life changed for the worse during a flight over the Pacific Ocean. Louis Zamperini showed significant amounts of courage by experiencing a terrifying plane crash and survival, being a Japanese Prisoner of War (POW), and enduring brutal treatment by Japanese Sergeant Mutsuhiro Watanabe (The Bird.) His story tells of extreme acts