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

The spirit of the book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand can be summed up by this quote from the book:

"On Kwajalein, Louis learned a dark truth know to the doomed in Hitler's death camps, the slaves of the American South, and a hundred other generations of betrayed people. 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 at which the body should have surrendered it. The loss if it can carry a man off as surely as thirst, hunger, exposure, and asphyxiation, and with greater cruelty"

Unbroken tells the miraculous and terrifying true story of Louis Zamperini, a one time thug turned Olympian who goes on to serve his country in WWII. Louis's harrowing saga begins by surviving 47 days at sea with very little food and water, fighting off sharks, and avoiding being killed by Japanese planes. Eventually Louis and one other man arrive to some islands in the South Pacific only to realize they are controlled by the Japanese. Louis becomes a prisoner of war. He is starved and beaten for the next two years. His biggest challenge is to survive the sadistic attention paid to him by one captor in particular, Bird.

Louis does survive and eventually returns home and tries to put his life back together. Louis is still alive today, he's in his 90's and is a renown motivational speaker. Here's a great video of Louis on CBS Sunday Morning.

It seems appropriate that I start this crazy project with Unbroken. The Olympics are going on as I type this, Michael Phelps is winning his 21st medal, and I wonder how many medals Louis could have won if he had been given the chance, if the world hadn't been set on fire by hate and megalomania.  

What stays with me most after reading this book is the idea of dignity, and how we Americans are so good at destroying it in one another. We lash out at one another's gender, age, skin color, culture, language, ideas, and social class. We allow ourselves to get wrapped up in vitriol, we've stopped thinking for ourselves. We've stopped listening with our hearts. As Louis says in the video, we "Americans don't forgive enough...hate is self-destructive. You aren't hurting the person you hate, you're hurting yourself." 

All of a sudden I find myself having a decision to make. Being the father of one, and soon two, do I teach my sons to give as good as they get? To hate and lash out at others as much as others will hate and try to harm them? Or do I teach them to listen with their hearts, to respect the dignity of others at the risk of losing their own? 

Read this book.