The Story of Louis Zamperini
The distinct odor of gasoline and salt water permeates your nostrils as you struggle for every breath. The anchor inside your chest seems unbothered by your desperate efforts to clutch some stray piece of the twisted metal floating just out of arm's reach. All but two of the ten men you were talking to, perhaps even laughing with, moments ago have met their watery fate in the center of the Pacific.
Where is hope in the midst of this despair?
The only man who could tell you is Louis Zamperini. He was one of only three crew members to survive the wreckage of the B-24D Liberator bomber “The Green Hornet” on May 27, 1943. Tail gunner Francis McNamara ultimately lost his battle with dehydration and starvation and was laid to rest at sea by his crewmates after surviving for thirty-three days.
On July 13, 1943, after forty-seven grueling days of being hunted by sharks, pummeled by horrendous storms, and harassed by enemy gunfire, Zamperini and pilot Russell Phillips ran their bullet-torn life raft ashore at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, a very small island chain two thousand miles from their original crash site. Unfortunately, being lost at sea had only been the beginning of their nightmare. Sailors with the Imperial Japanese Navy took them as prisoners of war immediately after their arrival, and they were taken to a Japanese internment camp.
While in captivity, Zamperini and the others suffered physical and psychological abuse that most of us can’t even begin to grasp the severity of. Corporal Mutsuhiro Watanabe, or as most knew him: “The Bird,” was particularly cruel and unusual in his tactics. He would often single out Zamperini and mock his past as an Olympic athlete, which to the now 80-pound prisoner seemed like a completely different lifetime. Zamperini and the other prisoners lived in constant fear of the volatility that surrounded them for nearly two and a half years.
President Truman announced the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, and shortly after, Zamperini and the other prisoners who had been fortunate enough to survive the camp were reunited with freedom.
Sadly, war would not soon leave Zamperini’s spirit. He would continue to fight countless battles within himself over the next several years, often losing to a passionate bitterness that filled his heart, a vengeful hatred that ran rampant within his mind, or the sweet numbness that he could only seem to find at the bottom of a bottle. Night after night, his captors, namely “The Bird,” haunted his dreams. Every day, the weight of his alcohol and trauma-fueled rage and violent outbursts became a little more for his family to bear.
Louis’s inner turmoil culminated one night as he wrestled with “The Bird” once more. He yelled and cursed and fought as hard as he could until he finally got the upper hand on the vicious prison guard. He wrapped his calloused fingers around the throat of his greatest enemy and set out to do what he had dreamt of doing every day since he had left the islands. Only, Louis wasn’t strangling “The Bird.” He suddenly woke from the nightmare to find that he was atop his pregnant wife who had been sleeping innocently next to him while his mind was on the other side of the globe. Cynthia had had enough. She wanted a divorce.
This, of course, only drove Louis deeper into the battlefield of his mind, but he wasn’t particularly good at hiding it. After raising some concerns and asking Cynthia a few questions, a friend and neighbor invited the couple to see an up-and-coming evangelist who had set up a tent in town and was speaking there daily. Cynthia went, but Louis refused to go. Upon Cynthia’s return from the tent meeting, she told her husband about her experience and that she had given her life to Jesus. She then asked him once more to attend the next day's event alongside her. Louis, who had never been a particularly religious man, scoffed at his wife’s new found faith. Why on Earth, after all he had seen and been through, would he waste his time with something like that nonsense? But what she told him next would end up being the nail in the coffin for every ounce of hate, malice, bitterness, pride, self-righteousness, and alcoholism he had left inside. Because she now walked with Christ, she no longer wanted a divorce, she just wanted him to go and hear what the man at the tent had to say.
So reluctantly, he went.
The man was a young Billy Graham, and the tent was just stop number eight in what became his historic worldwide crusades. Zamperini was appalled at what he heard at first. He even got up and stormed into the lobby at one point, but it was there that he remembered the desperate promise he had made, years prior, to a God that he wasn’t even sure he believed in. Suddenly he was back in the openness of the Pacific, thrashing about in the eye of one of the worst storms he could’ve ever imagined. “God, if I survive this, I will dedicate my life to you and serve you forever.” Louis returned to his seat at the revival and was quickly overcome by the message he now heard clearly. The Gospel, they called it. Louis had nowhere to go but to his knees, so to the floor he went. When he got up, he knew he had drank his last drop. He had forgiven his Japanese captors from all those years ago. He had forgiven “The Bird.”
That night in the Zamperini home, there was no war.
There was no Bird.
There was no ocean grave.
There were no dreams at all for the first time in nearly a decade.
Louis Zamperini had found peace.
He then held true to his promise and spent his life serving God. Louis passed on July 2, 2014. He was 97 years old.
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If I’m being completely transparent, I struggle with some form of anger or bitterness daily. It’s easy. It’s the only route that society tells me, as a man, that I should go. Be proud, and self-righteous, and when you feel you’ve been wronged, get mad, stay bitter and make them regret it!
How often do we see that end well?
How frequently do we find a satiated palate at the end of a bitter spoon? Never.
So why do we try over and over and over again? It’s easy.
If any one of us had the explicit right to be bitter, angry and vengeful, it would’ve been Louis Zamperini. His wartime experience had created a man with a gasoline mind, and he could only see his purpose in the flame; in the vengeance; in the volatility. He had become the very thing he was determined to destroy…..and he almost succeeded. It’s heartbreaking how often we mirror our own trauma and end up destroying ourselves or those closest to us. Looking back, Louis could see God’s provision scattered throughout his life. Time and time again, He had provided.
Time and time again, He proved that He is faithful, even when we are not.
It’s the same for you and me. Think of some times in your life that you’ve buried deep. The trauma, the depression, the not being seen or understood.
The anger, the desperation, the violence.
The bitterness, the loneliness, the addiction.
Where can you find Him? He’s there I promise. “...Seek and you will find…”
Gasoline
Lately, I’ve been gasoline searching for flame;
A match expectant to feel the friction of the sandpaper box I call home;
Butane waiting for the flick of a lighter to remind me
That I’m still not enough.
How long before it all dries out?
How long before the volatility becomes constant?
How long before the final bridge ignites?
How long before all the love I push away is reduced to ash and ember?
How long before I accept that these flames aren’t protecting anyone but me?
How long?
How long before I grasp that there is purity in the perimeter?
How long before I capture this heat and use it to warm my home?
How long before I use this light to lead my children through darkness and into love?
How long before the charred earth beneath me transforms to sprout new life?
How long until I realize that I’m not alone in this furnace?
How long until I believe that He is enough?
How long?