My rating: 5 of 5 stars
FYI Contains a few spoilers...
Wow!
This is a survical story about a Bombedier whose plane went down in the Pacific ocean. He survived many days a drift on the sea until he was found by Japanese soldiers. At that point he became a POW. He was a particulary special POW... He had been an olympic runner prior to the war. This ultimately helped him survive not only for his stature of body, but because of who he was to the American people.
I liked hearing about his running career, as running interest me these days. There were parts of his survival on his raft that testified to me that he was being watched over by God.
It was hard hearing of the cruelties of men. So, so, SOOOOO inhumane... It made me angry at first. Then when the writer continues Louie's story of how he overcomes his own anger towards the men who took him into the darkest hours of his life. I understood and remembered those men are men.
What a great man Louie Zamperini is. My favorite part was when he remembers his promise he made to God on the raft. He remembers and then the rain starts to fall again as it did when he nearly died of thirst. Chills I tell you!
Definitely a great read! A friend of mine brought out this good point: The other thing to take home from this book is to REMEMBER this story and others like it. To remember how this man was tortured, teased, dehumanized...There is never a time to put any human being through something like this. Not even if our national security depends on it.
