Unbroken

**//Unbroken//**

Facilitator: Holly Chesser Room Assignment: Student Enrollment:

__ Themes: __ Resilience / Survival Duty / Sacrifice Forgiveness / Redemption The Nature of Evil War

__ Topics for Discussion __ > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
 * 1) The reviewer for the Washingtonian wrote, “A warning: after cracking open //Unbroken// you may find yourself dog tired the next day, having spent most of the night fending off sleep with coffee refills, eager to find out whether the story of Louis Zamperini, Olympic runner turned WWII POW, ends in redemption or despair…In Hillenbrand’s [hands], it’s nothing less than a marvel—a book worth losing sleep over.” Many people have commented that this book was difficult to put down. Did you find that to be the case?
 * 1) The subtitle of //Unbroken// calls is “A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.” Which of the struggles that he overcame (adrift on the ocean, POW camp, post-war depression/alcoholism) did you find most challenging? What do you admire most about Zamperini?
 * 1) At age 2, Louie climbed out of his two-story home and was chased naked by a policeman. At age 5, he began smoking discarded cigarette butts on his walk to kindergarten. At age 8, he began drinking what remained of the adults’ wine under the table at dinner. As a teenager, he stole everything and fought anyone. In short, he was incorrigible. Did this anti-establishment behavior help create the spirit that could survive an ordeal?
 * 1) On page 16, the author Laura Hillenbrand includes the description of Louie’s childhood hero, Glenn Cunningham. As a child, Cunningham was badly injured in a schoolhouse explosion leaving his legs permanently scarred. Nevertheless, through sheer determination, Cunningham overcame excruciating pain and became one of the greatest milers in US history. We generally highlight talent or physical gifts as the defining characteristics of the athletes we admire. Why did Louie choose Cunningham as his hero?
 * 1) Mac, Phil, and Louie survive the Green Hornet’s crash into the ocean, but Mac ultimately succumbs to hopelessness. Hillenbrand writes on page 46, “It remains a mystery why these three young men, veterans of the same training and the same crash, differed so radically in their perceptions of their plight.” Is resilience inborn? Are some people just born sunny and optimistic, while others assume the worst? Or can this trait be developed through experience?
 * 1) In World War II, the military had to develop planes that could travel from Hawaii to the Japanese islands without refueling. The B-24, nicknamed “the Flying Coffin,” by the men who flew it, had a malfunction rate that caused nearly 53,000 stateside accidents and killed roughly 15,000 soldiers in training expeditions. As one soldier commented, “Life was cheap in war.” Why was the US government willing to employ a plane that had such a poor safety record? Would we do so today?
 * 1) Americans know far more about the atrocities committed by the Germans in the World War II Holocaust than those carried out by the Japanese. Yet, the Japanese military engaged in comparable horrors: the Massacre of Nanking, forced sexual enslavement of women, degradation of POWs, biological and chemical warfare experimentation. Why aren’t these atrocities, sometimes referred to as the “Forgotten Holocaust of World War II,” highlighted and studied more extensively?
 * 1) Does this book make you wonder at mankind's capacity for cruelty? What accounts for it—especially on the part of the Japanese, a highly cultured and civilized society? (The same question, of course, has been applied to the Nazis.) Remember, the “Bird” was wealthy, well educated, and beloved by his family. What accounts for his cruelty?
 * 1) Did the book, especially its explanation of the Imperial Japanese Army’s edict to kill all allied POWs and civilians at the close of the war, affect your view of the US government’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
 * 1) When Louie returned to the US and his family, he, just like many other veterans, found it difficult to re-enter normal life. Hillenbrand writes, “Many felt lonely and isolated, having endured abuses that ordinary people couldn’t understand. Their dignity had been obliterated, replaced with a pervasive sense of shame and worthlessness...Coming home was an experience of profound, perilous aloneness.” This remains the case today for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. What can we as Americans do to support our soldiers, to honor and acknowledge their sacrifice so that they can restore their wholeness and not remain broken from these experiences?
 * 1) After the war, Louie remained fixated on Mutsuhito Watanabe, “the Bird,” who haunted his dreams. Depressed, alcoholic, often violent, Louie pushed everyone away from him, including his wife, believing that he could only heal his pain by killing his Japanese oppressor. Hillenbrand writes of his torment, “There was no one right way to peace; each man had to find his own path.” Ultimately, Louie found it through a born-again religious experience that allowed him to forgive Watanabe. Almost over night, he became a new man. How was this possible? Is this possibility open to anyone suffering from a desire for revenge?
 * 1) The morning after his religious epiphany, Louie “felt profound peace. When he thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him” (376). Yet Louie was an exceptionally loyal man to his fellow soldiers during the war. What accounts for his belief that God chose to save him? Does God choose to bestow his divine love on only a few? Why didn’t God intervene to save all of the soldiers? Why Louise?
 * 1) After the war, Louie seemed to believe that justice against the Bird would ease his pain. Ultimately, he came to realize that only mercy could do that. What is the distinction between justice and mercy?
 * 1) Does Watanbe deserve to be forgiven? Are there acts, so cruel and inhuman, that one who commits them should never be forgiven?
 * 1) Watanbe, a fugitive after the war, is never brought to justice and dies unrepentant. At one point, he appeared willing to meet with Louie but then recanted that decision. Why do you think he had a change of heart?