POW's

As I got up during the night to go to the bathroom,

barely able to move with stiff and sore joints,

influenced by reading “Unbroken” before turning out the lights,

I wondered

When is this war going to end?

When are the B-29s going to save us?

The entire sky was swarming with hundreds of fighters.  American and Japanese, rising and falling, streaming bullets at one another.  Over Tokyo, lines of dive-bombers bellied down like waves slapping a beach, slamming bombs into the aircraft works and airport.  As they rose, quills of fire came up under them.  Louie was standing directly underneath the largest air battle yet fought over Japan.  Page 274

Two sips of water a day weren’t nearly enough to replace Louie’s torrential fluid loss.  His thirst became worse than anything he’d known on the raft.  He crawled to the door and pleaded for water.  The guard left, then returned with a cup.  Louie, grateful, drew close to the door to take a drink.  The guard threw scalding water in his face.  Louie was so dehydrated that he couldn’t help but keep begging.  At least four more times, the response was the same, leaving Louie’s face speckled with blisters.  Louie knew that dehydration might kill him, and part of him hoped it would.  Pg 181

The three hundred residents, mostly Australians, were shrunken down to virtual stick figures.  Most were wearing the tropical-weight khakis in which they’d been captured, and which, thanks to years of uninterrupted wear, were so ragged that one civilian likened them to seaweed.  The wind, scudding off the sea, whistled through cracks in the walls, and there were so many holes in the roof that it snowed indoors.  The whole building was visible infested with fleas and lice, and rats trotted through the rooms.  The beds were planks nailed into the walls; the mattresses were loose rice straw.  Everywhere, there were large gaps in the floor; the POWs had pulled up the floorboards and burned them in an effort to survive temperatures that regularly plunged far below zero.  Pg 277-278

As the weeks passed, the Bird didn’t relent in his attacks on Louie.  The corporal sprang upon him randomly, every day, pounding his face and head.  Any resistance from Louie, even shielding his face, would inspire the Bird to more violence.  Louie could do nothing but stand there, staggering, as the Bird struck him. Page 244-45

The Bird swung the belt backward, with the buckle on the loose end, and then whipped it around himself and forward, as if he were performing a hammer throw.  The buckle rammed into Louie’s left temple and ear.

Louie felt as if he had been shot in the head.  Page 251

Toward the end of December, the Bird ordered all of the men to the compound where they found a truck brimming with apples and oranges.  In all of his time as a POW, Louise had seen only one piece of fruit, the tangerine that Sasaki had given him.  The men were told they could take two pieces each.  As the famished men swarmed onto the pile, Japanese photographers circled, snapping photos.  Then, just as the men were ready to devour the fruit, the order came to put it all back.  The entire thing had been staged for propaganda. Page 268

How much more starvation,

beatings, deprivations, humiliations,

desperation, intimidation, coercion,

threats, loathing, scorn, hate, deriding

can a body endure?

We all have had vicious tyrants,

although none to compare to the Bird,

in our lives.

We all have been disappointed and hurt;

had rats crawl over our faces;

been beat, scorned.

Not physically, perhaps,

but metaphorically.

Not as intensely.

Because mostly we live in sunshine,

Clean sheets, nourishment,

happiness.  Joyful relationships.

Approaching the twilight hours of my life,

and as the body breaks down because that’s the way of things,

in the darkness of the night,

it sometimes feels like life has been a long battle

and we are prisoners of war.

I haven’t finished the book.

I know Louie Zamperini lived.

Like everyone else,

I know I’ll die.

The war over.

UNBROKEN

Laura Hillenbrand