World War II has always fascinated me. This is likely related to two things. One is familial involvement. One grandpa was a soldier in the war. The other set of grandparents were children in Germany. The other thing is that I loved drawing aircraft as a kid, and the bombers of World War II figured prominently in my usual repertoire. What I didn’t necessarily understand as a kid is the large part that prison camps played in the war. From the little reading that I have done and the little that I know, there are atrocious things that happened in the war’s prison camps, but I have heard more than a few stories of people rising above the horror and rising above the temptation to give up or to forever hate those who have treated them so evilly. These stories are an interesting and often inspiring piece of history.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (ISBN: 978-0-679-60375-7) is just such a story about overcoming trials. Like so many stories of resilience in the face of overwhelming odds, the story starts with humble origins. Louis Zamperini was the son of Italian immigrants struggling to make ends meet along with most other Depression-era Americans. A caring older brother discovered the track and invited Louie along, later serving as an unofficial coach, and Louie became as star, eventually qualifying for the Olympics, running a race (5,000 meters) he didn’t usually do. He competed admirably in Berlin, finishing eighth against some of the world’s greatest runners. His running career, though, was cut short by the onset of war, and he served as a bombardier. That, too, was cut short because his plane went down during a rescue mission, and he was captured by the Japanese after some time floating in a raft at sea. Floating around for weeks was already an amazing act of survival and resilience, but the worst was yet to come. Zamperini then spent more than two years in various Japanese prison camps undergoing brutal treatment. He and others kept their wits about them by resolving to beat the system and not give in to their captors and abusers. Some made it, some did not. There were some funny stories along the way, but most of it was monotony, drudgery, and pain. Eventually, Zamperini and the others that survived were done with the horrors of the camps because the war ended. Unfortunately, for many, that was not the concrete ending they would’ve preferred. The horrors lived on in many of the former POWs’ minds, causing more than one to turn to alcohol, destructive behaviors, and even suicide to end the pain. Zamperini’s story included a lot of post-war alcoholism, but he eventually quit that thanks to a conversion to evangelical Christianity, in part because of him remembering some promises he made to God while floating aimlessly on the Pacific Ocean in the first few days after his plane went down. Zamperini used this redeeming experience in his life to later inspire and help others as well as come to terms with and even forgive his war-time tormentors.
I thought the book was good. It was an inspiring story and it included some interesting information on the war. It is best classified as a biography of Zamperini, not a history book. There are many aspects of the book that were worth remembering, including the hard work and dedication the subject put into his running, his service in the military, and then his life after the war. There were so many times he could’ve given up and probably justifiably so, but he didn’t. He used the overwhelmingly negative experiences to make himself better, which is something worth emulation. As noted above, this was a trait that was fairly common in his generation and one that is definitely missing in many today. I was intrigued to read that faith and religion played such a large role in his post-war healing. Such an aspect to story was not surprising, though, since a trust in the atonement of Christ is the surest way to redemption. Finally, I would be lying if I didn’t note that I liked the stories about the running, which included some thoughts about Zamperini being one of the contenders for breaking the 4-minute mile barrier, and the Olympics in pre-war Germany, which are a subject of interest in and of themselves.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (ISBN: 978-0-679-60375-7) is just such a story about overcoming trials. Like so many stories of resilience in the face of overwhelming odds, the story starts with humble origins. Louis Zamperini was the son of Italian immigrants struggling to make ends meet along with most other Depression-era Americans. A caring older brother discovered the track and invited Louie along, later serving as an unofficial coach, and Louie became as star, eventually qualifying for the Olympics, running a race (5,000 meters) he didn’t usually do. He competed admirably in Berlin, finishing eighth against some of the world’s greatest runners. His running career, though, was cut short by the onset of war, and he served as a bombardier. That, too, was cut short because his plane went down during a rescue mission, and he was captured by the Japanese after some time floating in a raft at sea. Floating around for weeks was already an amazing act of survival and resilience, but the worst was yet to come. Zamperini then spent more than two years in various Japanese prison camps undergoing brutal treatment. He and others kept their wits about them by resolving to beat the system and not give in to their captors and abusers. Some made it, some did not. There were some funny stories along the way, but most of it was monotony, drudgery, and pain. Eventually, Zamperini and the others that survived were done with the horrors of the camps because the war ended. Unfortunately, for many, that was not the concrete ending they would’ve preferred. The horrors lived on in many of the former POWs’ minds, causing more than one to turn to alcohol, destructive behaviors, and even suicide to end the pain. Zamperini’s story included a lot of post-war alcoholism, but he eventually quit that thanks to a conversion to evangelical Christianity, in part because of him remembering some promises he made to God while floating aimlessly on the Pacific Ocean in the first few days after his plane went down. Zamperini used this redeeming experience in his life to later inspire and help others as well as come to terms with and even forgive his war-time tormentors.I thought the book was good. It was an inspiring story and it included some interesting information on the war. It is best classified as a biography of Zamperini, not a history book. There are many aspects of the book that were worth remembering, including the hard work and dedication the subject put into his running, his service in the military, and then his life after the war. There were so many times he could’ve given up and probably justifiably so, but he didn’t. He used the overwhelmingly negative experiences to make himself better, which is something worth emulation. As noted above, this was a trait that was fairly common in his generation and one that is definitely missing in many today. I was intrigued to read that faith and religion played such a large role in his post-war healing. Such an aspect to story was not surprising, though, since a trust in the atonement of Christ is the surest way to redemption. Finally, I would be lying if I didn’t note that I liked the stories about the running, which included some thoughts about Zamperini being one of the contenders for breaking the 4-minute mile barrier, and the Olympics in pre-war Germany, which are a subject of interest in and of themselves.
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The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans ad Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (ISBN: 978-1-101-62274-2) by Daniel James Brown tells a story in which sports and life worked together to teach just such lessons as young men who made up some of the Greatest Generation strove for excellence in their athletic endeavors and in life, garnering a gold medal along the way. The story follows the life of Joe Rantz the closest, but the reader also gets fairly well acquainted with his rowing teammates, some of his family, his girlfriend, and his coaches along the way. They all were the kind of people that made America great — hard workers who were responsible and self-reliant, expecting nothing from others but the best from themselves. Rantz had an interesting childhood in which his mother died, he spent some time living in a mining camp, his step-mother was the stuff of fairy tales, brutally controlling toward his dad and eventually kicking Rantz out of the house when he was still a young teenager. Joe fended for himself, living in the house the rest of his family abandoned, working his way through high school and college. It bordered, in a way, on a tale of survival during his early years. In college, he tried out for and made the rowing team, showing immense potential as a freshman. Hard work over the next three years eventually landed him and his teammates in the Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where Hitler was in his heyday. Rantz and his fellow oarsman from Washington had overcome a lot throughout their lives, many from similar backgrounds to Joe’s, to make it to the Olympics in a sport historically dominated by elites and other from the moneyed class. In Berlin, they overcame more challenges and the home team to capture gold literally right from underneath Hitler’s nose.
Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever (ISBN: 978-0-345-52050-0) by Jack McCallum takes a pretty in-depth look at that most famous of basketball teams. The book goes into a lot of detail about how it even came about that the pros were allowed in the Olympics. It was a long, drawn-out process that involved FIBA, the USOC, and the NBA. Once all the egos involved in such organizations were sorted to an acceptable degree, the path was open, and the U.S. got to work putting the Dream Team together. McCallum, who was an NBA writer for a long time, chronicles how each member of the team was selected. He profiles them, some briefly, some in great detail. The qualifying tournament and the Olympics themselves are also described, with the Olympics, obviously, getting more attention even though the games had similar outcomes: blowouts. Since there is so much spectacle that attends the Olympics, and the Dream Team only compounded this effect, there was a bit more to cover. The book finishes with a short section on how the Dream Team had a large impact on the the global game of basketball and talks about the mess that were the next to U.S. Olympic teams.
Putin’s Olympics: The Sochi Games and the Evolution of Twenty-First Century Russia (ISBN: 978-1-315-81728-6) is a book by Robert W. Orttung and Sufian N. Zhemukhov that brings both of those interests together. It takes a deeper look than the usual press on the subject at the Sochi Olympics and their greater context in Russia’s domestic and international politics. The book looks at the problems surrounding the hosting of the Olympics in Sochi, which included corruption, a marginalization of civil society, problematic international relations, and the relation of security during the Olympics and its connection to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The viewpoint of the book was from that of the Olympics being something the authors defined as a “mega-project” and how Russia’s rulers, especially President Putin, tried to use that to their own advantages, both personally and to bring Russia’s standing up on the international stage. The authors come to what I consider mixed conclusions, noting that the Sochi games were secure, did result in much-needed infrastructure upgrades in Sochi, and, from Putin’s standpoint, his position was secured because Russians saw the Olympics as a positive for their country, although, as the Shenderovich quote above notes, this is not necessarily a good thing. On the other hand, the successes came at a great price, both monetarily and in prestige internationally, where Russia was hurt by the scandals surrounding the games.
Assisted: An Autobiography (ISBN: 978-1-60907-570-5) by John Stockton, if nothing else, proved me right in my assumption. Memoir might be a better description of the book, but those arguments about semantics take nothing away from a rather thorough look at Stockton’s life as a little kid roaming the neighborhood with his friends on long summer days to his time as an NBA star and through his post-retirement activities. He told about his upbringing, his childhood, his high school days, his experiences in college, including various summer jobs, basketball, and dating. He talked about making it in the NBA, being a rookie, changes in the game, some of former Jazz owner Larry Miller’s quirks, and a host of other things that fans and disinterested parties alike might find interesting. He talked about his family, and his parents and wife in particular. He discussed a couple of his coaches, including Jerry Sloan, an NBA great and another hard-nosed, down-to-earth, blue-collar guy. Stockton’s discussion of the Olympics was fascinating because he was very open about his love for his country and the great responsibility he felt putting U.S.A. on his chest. He discussed his life after basketball, except that it hasn’t really been life after basketball as some of his kids of played at a very high level, he’s restored a warehouse and turned it into a community sports center, and he’s still involved in the occasional pickup game. Finally, as part of the proving my assumptions true, his tale is woven throughout with references to family, God, prayer, hard work, and other old-fashioned values.