Unbroken Essay Papers

There are many challenges in life and how they are overcome can separate that person from everyone else. Louis Zamperini in Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand was one of the best runners to ever live and his road to success was not an easy one. Running is not only a sport that requires physical toughness, but requires mental toughness and both of those were key elements that helped Louie Zamperini stay alive.

As a child Louie was active and enjoyed to investigate the world around him. Being a middle child can be frustrating because not as much attention will be directed towards them. As Louie reached the age of five he started smoking used cigarettes he found walking to school everyday. At the age of eight Louie started drinking and one day came

home so drunk he could barely stand up straight. In and out of school Louie would get beatings and could not defend himself against multiple attackers. Every time the beatings stopped Louie got angrier and angrier. He finally learned how to fight from his father and was able to pick a fight with anyone and take them down. As Louie grew older anything that was not nailed or tied down was fair game for him to steal. He got into trouble with a bunch of neighbors and a couple teachers. His family tried everything to put his life of crime to rest but had no success. Finally one day in High School Louie was persuaded to join the track team. Surprisingly it was not by his parents, but by a group of girls who Louie could just not say no to. Pete, Louie’s, older brother had been a fantastic runner for years and was ecstatic when he heard Louie was going to try track. Louie, not knowing it now, that track would change his life around completely.
Since he was a little kid Louie always wanted to be first. Transferring that winning mentality over to track was not difficult for him at all. Having Pete as his trainer was great because he was always around and they did not have to pay him. As the year went by Louie got better and better. He went from being last in every competition to being third and second with the occasional first place. Training intensively all summer, Louie was ready for the next track season. Astonished by how much time Louie was able to take off his mile, his coach realized he had a star on his team. To get so much better in just one year Louie ran all the time. One week in the summer Louie was invited to go with his friend to his cabin and every morning Louie would run outside to make sure he did not lose any of his stamina. Louie would also run to the city pool and dive in and hold on to the chain at the bottom of the pool and hold his breath as long as could to build up his lungs. Very shortly after Louie was winning races left and right and people had no idea where this kid had come from. To keep getting better he did something that people thought was the worst thing possible thing to do as a competitive runner, run stadiums. Stadiums is running the bleachers to the football fields up and down consecutive times. This not only changed Louie’s running career but changed others too. His mile time got faster with the stadiums and training with Pete’s colleague’s on the USC team. With all the intensive and grueling training Louie was not only winning every event he ran in by a landslide, he was breaking the records of those events too. Louie loved to run and running changed his life from very bad to very good.
In World War Ⅱ Louie’s plane crashed into the ocean and he and two others were thousands of miles away from land in any direction.

They did not know it until they got there that the current was taking them to Japan’s controlled waters. Louie and Phil were on the life raft for forty-seven days with no food and water that lasted them a few days at the most. Staying alive was not only a physical challenge but a mental one too. Other people who have been stranded on a life raft have gone insane and become delusional because their brains have not been used for weeks. Louie Olympic shaped body gave him enough strength to stay alive and he and Phil kept their brains active by playing games or telling stories to the exact detail. After being captured by the Japanese, Louie and Phil were taken to the island known as Execution Island. Hundreds to thousands of POW’s were executed on that island and according to the stories no POW’s had made it off that island alive. Louie and Phil were on Execution Island for weeks being tortured and interrogated. After what felt like months of torture the two captives were told they were being moved to a “Red Cross POW Camp”. Both Louie and Phil were shocked that they were not killed after they did not give away any secrets about the American forces to the interrogators. Louie would later find out that he was later going to be used for Japanese propaganda against the United States and that is why he was not executed on Execution Island. Louie inadvertently saved Phil’s life because if he was going to be used as propaganda he would have been more willing to if they had not killed his best friend Phil. In two of the POW camps Louie was specifically targeted by “The Bird”: a terrible Japanese guard who punished POW’s for no good reason. The Bird specifically went after Louie because he knew about his Olympic past and picked him out for that reason. As a POW his running career had a positive and negative affect on his condition and

life.
Louie Zamperini’s life was like a roller coaster with its ups and downs but in the end running had a tremendous impact. Learning how to stay physically and mentally strong from running saved Louie’s life and the others around him. Louie’s life was truly amazing and his determination to run and stay alive was life changing and heroic.