Unbroken

Yesterday was Veteran's Day and it was the perfect day for my book club to read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  This is the same author who wrote a book about another fast runner, Seabiscuit.  In this story the fast runner is Louis Zamperini, an Olypic champion runner from California who served in the armed forces during World War Two.  It's a true story.  Louis' life is a complicated one. He goes through spells of great achievement and juvenile delinquency.  His is one stubborn man.  The kind of thinking that got him into trouble with the law is also the kind of thinking that helps him survive the war.  Where other men would have died in the plane crash into the ocean, he survived.  Where other men did die in the subsequent weeks adrift in a life boat in the Pacific Ocean, he survived.  He grabbed ocean birds who stopped to rest on his raft.  He even grabbed sharks by the tail, hauled them in, and ate their livers.  Some parts of this book were tough to read.  We have no idea what it is like to serve in the armed forces.  I feel it is my duty as a citizen to read war stories and to learn from our veterans.  Louis has it tough being at sea.  But that wasn't the hardest part.  Surviving life in a Japanese prisoner of war camp was worse.  As an officer and a former Olympic champion, these achievements only make it worse for Louis.  The thing about Japanese prisoner of war camps is not only the lack of sanitation and starvation; it is the shameful degradation that makes it intolerable.  What Louis went through was horrible and although he was unbroken, he was temporarily in need of repair.  He is heartbreakingly honest about his problems adjusting to life as a civilian.  This is a great story.  As it was my turn to bring treats, I decided to bring, on top of butternut squash bars with cream cheese frosting, some Japanese rice balls.  I'm sure my recipe for rice balls (via Martha Stewart) were delicious in comparison to the rice balls Louis ate. Mine, for example, did not have maggots wriggling in them.  But offering the rice balls was my way of saying to all veterans, "Thank you for your service." I suspect that when Angelina Jolie's movie production of this story comes out on Christmas Day, many more people will know of and want to honor Louis Zamperini.