Unbroken is a wonderful book by Laura Hillenbrand. Its main character, Louis Zamperini, is an Olympian from Torrence, California, with a good chance to win Gold in the 1940 Olympics, after running the 5000 meters in the 1936 Olympics. Because of World War II, the 1940 Olympics get cancelled. Louis becomes a bombadier, gets shot down, and floats with another survivor in a six foot raft for forty-some days in the Pacific, until they land on an island run by the Japanese. He gets transferred to a POW camp near Tokyo, all the while keeping a diary.
Louis becomes daily victimized by a thoroughly sadistic Japanese corporal. Have you ever been bullied? I know what Mr. Zamperini experienced was far worse than anything you or I ever have had to endure, but bullying is never a pleasant experience. It is happening to me now in my life. I am choosing to endure it, praying daily for the ability to be kind and empathic, but inside feeling anger and defiance.
The POWs in the camp became experts in the art of defiance, thereby keeping their sanity and their dignity.
1 comment:
I was never really bullied. I think somewhere inside of me is a very mean person and somehow people steer clear of that on some unconscious level. Or maybe I have just been particularly fortunate. But the quiet dignity of our men in the face of Japanese cruelity is a lesson for all of us.
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