A Very Brief Look At Louie Zamperini's Life

Louie Zamperini was a troublemaker in his hometown, Torrance. From a troubled high schooler, to an Olympic runner, to a prisoner of war (POW). In high school he would get in trouble constantly. Until one day, his brother Pete made him train for track hours on end. He absolutely hated his training conditions. After Louie went to the Olympics in Germany, he enlisted into the army during WWII, where he endured traumatizing affairs. Louie has gone through a lot and it affected him terribly. When he returned home after he was saved from a POW camp, he developed PTSD.

Louie went to the Olympics in 1936, where he became the youngest person to go to a 5,000 meter run. He joined the Air Force a while later and became a Lieutenant. Louie was captured

The traumatizing events Louie went through damaged him severely. Louie ran away from home when he was in high school. He went to Los Angeles with a friend for a a few days. He got into an argument with his dad, mixed with the harsh training hours given to him by his brother, he finally broke and left. He got on a train and rode North, he was caught by a police officer and was forced to jump off the train at gunpoint as it was moving. He becomes starved and goes home. He’s welcomed with open arms and he goes back to Pete’s track training hours. Louie Zamperini during his time in the POW camp had experienced so much pain mentally and physically. Mental Health is very important, Louie’s mental health had been terrible during his time at the camp. He was drained, sad, traumatized and exhausted. The Bird was mostly the one doing all this to Louie. The Bird would starve him, make him to physical torture as well. In the POW camp Louie had no way to communicate or talk to his family. In the book Unbroken it states..”The Pacific POWs who went home in 1945 were torn-down men. They had an intimate understanding of man’s vast capacity to experience suffering, as well as his equally vast capacity, and hungry willingness, to inflict it. They carried unspeakable memories of torture and humiliation, and an acute sense of vulnerability that attended the knowledge of how readily they could be disarmed and dehumanized.