Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

pp. 15 - 18

This is the story of airman Louis Zamperini, ditched in the Pacific in WWII, floating for weeks, captured and imprisoned by the Japanese and remaining unbroken. Louis Zamperini had grown up with a “perfect” older brother Pete. Pete was “handsome, popular, impeccably groomed, polite to elders and avuncular to juniors, silky smooth with girls, and blessed with such sound judgment that even when he was a child, his parents consulted him on difficult decisions. He ushered his mother into her seat at dinner, turned in at seven, and tucked his alarm clock under his pillow so as not to wake Louie, with whom he shared a bed. He rose at three to run a three-hour paper route, and deposited all his earnings in the bank, which would swallow every penny when the depression hit. He had a lovely singing voice and a gallant habit of carrying pins in his pants cuff, in case his dance partner’s dress strap failed. He once saved a girl from drowning.” He was thoroughly admirable and thoroughly annoying at the same time.