Louis Pilgrim Unbroken Heroism

Unbroken taught me so much about World War II, POW camps, and the lives and struggles of those living throughout it. I learned about the horrific conditions of the Japanese POW camps the most. Louis Zamperini spent much of the book in various camps, tortured, starved, and sick. The conditions of the Japanese camps were a stark contrast to those of the American camps. In the Japanese camps, prisoners were treated like vermin.

His Olympic running dreams crushed by war, crashing his bomber plane into the ocean, floating in a raft with no food and no water for weeks. Getting captured by the Japanese, getting beaten close to death everyday, being abused in prison camps for years. That was the life of Louis Zamperini. The biography Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand tells the chilling true story of Louie and the countless obstacles he faced during World War II. Louie teaches readers that through optimism, any challenge can be overcome.

World War II was a horrifying time when some people didn’t even have a choice to join in or not. When Louie was young he ran so fast and broke all his high school track records and was training for the four minute mile in the olympics. He was then drafted into war and his aircraft gets taken down twice, the 2nd time trapping him and his crew in the ocean. He is captured by Japan where he is forced to do labor and is beaten. Unbroken shows just how we can just remember what happened and stay strong in any situation.

According to BrainyQuotes, Joseph Campbell once said, “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to sometimes bigger than oneself” (Inspirational Quotes). This applies to my grandfather, Charles Jones acts who spent time as a U.S. Air Force firefighter during The Vietnam War. He took action and became a fire chief, but now he refers to himself as an average person; however, due to his service he is a hero. Jones expresses heroism by overcoming the struggles of training. Once he was sent to the US Air Force Recruiting Office at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The Effects of PTSD on WWII POWs During World War II, thousands of American soldiers were captured and taken into Japanese prisoner of war camps. These POWs were subjected to terrible treatment and horrible conditions. Their environments were so terrible that many World War II POWs have developed post-traumatic stress disorder, a disease which affects their postwar lives in drastic ways. An example of this being Louis Zamperini, a WWII POW who spent nearly 2 years being tortured and abused in POW camps in Japan, his story recorded by Laura Hillenbrand in Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. After the war, Zamperini suffered from PTSD and alcoholism due to his abuse, which nearly destroyed him.

Heroes in “I am a Soldier, Too” A couple working hard so that, one day, their children can have a good life. A nurse going out of her way to make sure a patient is cared for properly. A king abdicating his throne so that his country can become a democracy. Heroism comes in many different forms and acts.

Unbroken The author wrote this story to inform the reader of the life of Louis Zamperini, while also telling the story in an entertaining way. Hillenbrand demonstrated the main idea throughout the book by using rhetorical devices such as diction, syntax, imagery, and tone. Hillenbrand’s use of these rhetorical devices contribute to the book Unbroken by emphasizing the main character, Louis “Louie” Zamperini’s, life before, during, and after becoming a prisoner of war.

The epigraph in All Quiet on the Western Front states that soldiers,“even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by war.” Many soldiers died or suffered physical injuries from fighting in World War One. The ones who didn’t came out of the war mentally or emotionally damaged. The war resulted in diseases, mental disorders, and a loss of a soldier’s humanity and innocence. Many soldiers fighting in the war suffered diseases from terrible trench and living conditions.

The True Weight of War “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, brings to light the psychological impact of what soldiers go through during times of war. We learn that the effects of traumatic events weigh heavier on the minds of men than all of the provisions and equipment they shouldered. Wartime truly tests the human body and and mind, to the point where some men return home completely destroyed. Some soldiers have been driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to survive day to day. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery.

“Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man 's soul in his body long past the point when the body should have surrendered it” (Hillenbrand 189). In the novel Unbroken, written by Laura Hillenbrand, Louis “Louie” Zamperini goes through several life-threatening experiences. After being a troublemaker as a child, and an Olympic athlete, Louie straps up his boots and becomes a bombardier for the Army Air Corps. After a traumatizing crash and a forty-six day survival at sea, Louie is taken captive by Japanese officials.

Louie Zamperini and Mutsuhiro “The Bird” Watanabe: Character Comparison Like snowflakes, all people are extremely unique. Therefore, it can be assumed that we all have a different outlook on the world and will handle what the universe throws at us in our own way. In the young adult novel, Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand conveys this theme, war and trauma can have profound and varied effects on different people experiencing it in a similar way. She does this by showing the reader extremes at opposite ends of the spectrum: Louie Zamperini and Mutsuhiro Watanabe.

Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand, the author of Unbroken, wrote the book about Louis Zamperini’s fight to survive though tortured, beaten, and a barrage of gunfire. After surviving a plane crash in the middle of the ocean, where he spent forty-seven days slowly dying of intense hunger and thirst, the book shows Louis Zamperini’s quick wit and will to survive despite being tormented as a Japanese POW (prisoner of war). The author uses rhetorical devices such as syntax, diction, imagery, and tone to amplify certain moments, Hillenbrand uses imagery to convey the scene and appeal to the reader’s senses and uses precise diction to elaborate on certain scenarios. She uses tone to convey the characters’ attitudes and to give the feel of certain moment.

War Combat, loyalty, enmity, bloodshed, and duty, all words that fit under the category of war. The novel Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is about Louis Zamperini a strong willed man raised in Torrance, California. He started as a young troublemaker until he discovered his passion for running in high school. That very passion led him to compete in the Olympics. Later he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, a brave decision that would change his life.

In the United States thousands of veterans are not able to leave behind the horrors and traumatic events they experience while at war. They bring the war home and have to re-experience it in their minds each and every day, no matter how much time has passed since their last battle or traumatic

This shows war causes more than pointless death it also causes so many disabilities and emotional trauma. There is an estimated 313,890,422 veterans who know have some form of disability according to The United States Census Bureau. All of these Veterans has disabilities ranging from emotion to physical. The