Read any good books lately? (Part 2)

We didn't set out to have the first two books of our summer recommendations be war stories, but after our first recommendation of a work of fiction about World War II (see post from Friday, June 8 about Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet), we are offering a biography centering on this time period.  Today's recommendation is Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand (author of Seabiscuit).  Written in 2010, this book chronicles the life of Louis Zamperini, U.S. Olympian (in track) turned second lieutenant turned prisoner of war.  While the book's subtitle accurately reflects that this is a story of survival, resilience and redemption, this is also a story of dignity and forgiveness. 

This biography has much to tell us about the loss of human dignity: "Men subjected to dehumanizing treatment experience profound wretchedness and loneliness and find that hope is almost impossible to retain.  Without dignity, identity is erased.  In its absence, men are defined not by themselves but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live.  One American airman, shot down and relentlessly debased by his captors, described the state of mind that his captivity created: 'I was literally becoming a lesser human being.'  . . . 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 of it can carry a man off as surely as thirst, hunger, exposure and asphyxiation, and with greater cruelty.  In places like Kwajalein, degradation could be as lethal as a bullet" (p. 182-3).

During his years as a prisoner of war, Zamperini endured unspeakable, daily torture at the hand of his captors.  When physically freed from his captors, Louie had a long road until he freed his spirit of them. Thus, the description of the forgiveness he extended to his captors years later provides extraordinary Christian witness. 

This 496-page biography is impossible to condense, but worth every minute it takes to read it.  Hopefully, we will find a little something in Louie's story that makes us better human beings.