Some of the kids, full of a “Whaddaya trying to pull?” attitude, would always ask, “What are we gonna do here?”
I was about to show them. I secured my rope as best I could around a large rock, tied the other end around myself, and walked to the edge. I turned around to look at the group. I could see in their eyes that they thought I was crazy.
I jumped off the waterfall backward.
That got their attention.
The cliff was only thirty feet high but they were stunned because they couldn’t see anything after I’d jumped. In fact, I was rappelling down the cliff face—and just getting started. I made my way back up and said, “Okay, fellows, every one of you is going to do that before we leave camp.”
“Oh no, not me!”
“I can’t do that.”
“No way!”
I did it twice more. (And eventually so did each of them.)
Back on the bus the boys couldn’t stop yakking or asking questions. Once they started talking to me, I had them. They’d gone from ignoring me to being on my side. Now I had their attention, which was the point.
It’s tough to have a conversation if only one person is paying attention and the other individual has already made up their mind about what’s what.
You need to break the stalemate by shifting their perspective. Thank goodness most of us don’t have to jump off a cliff to do it.
First You Listen
_______
Keeping the boys active and involved was my primary focus, but it wasn’t everything. I needed to get inside their heads and hearts. We had to talk to each other. I always told the boys that if they had any problems they could come to me or the camp counselors, Keith and Paul.
Somewhere inside each troubled young man, whether deep or near the surface, he wanted to open up to somebody who might actually listen. I saw it a thousand times: Getting the problem out in the open was a relief. It’s hard to hold something monumental inside yourself without it turning into anger and fear and resentment. Talking helped the boys reveal their hearts and souls. It lightened the load.
I wanted to find out the nature of each boy’s particular problem. Was he having trouble with his family? Stealing? Cutting classes? Fighting? Of course, you can’t just start with “What’s your problem?” You have to really listen. Listening is not a sign of weakness or of giving up your authority; it’s a sign of strength. If you want to help you have to show a genuine interest, emphasis on genuine, and focus in. You can’t fool kids, but they will talk if they trust you.
I made it my priority to be available at any time. I resisted being judgmental; that only creates opposition. I would never tell a boy that he was bad, or compare him to another boy and ask why he couldn’t be more like him. That’s not helpful. I might offer a little direction, but I never made decisions for my boys. The idea was to reach a point where they said, “Yeah, this is what I should do.” Then I’d try to help them do it.
Often I started by using a topic I knew a lot about—as did most boys. Sports. I could talk about being an Olympian. If they liked football, I could talk about my time at USC. In fact, the coaches at USC were always helpful. I once worked with a broken family of five kids. To get their minds off the divorce, I took them down to the school. The football coach at the time, Ted Tollner, was thrilled. He said, “Louie, I’ll do anything to help you. Every workout, the gate is closed to outsiders, but you’re allowed to bring your kids in anytime, even before the UCLA game.” After Ted, USC football coach Larry Smith was equally helpful. When those kids went on campus, met all those players, well, you can imagine, they became dyed-in-the-wool USC Trojans fans.
I also made a point of being versatile in other sports. If they liked ice skating, I’d go ice skating. Or skateboarding. I could ski, climb, play tennis, cycle, and go rock climbing.
Once the boys began to open up, the process didn’t stop with them realizing what to do that might help straighten out their lives. I couldn’t just say, “Congratulations. You figured it out,” and then drop them. That’s like giving a person an aspirin to kill pain, when finding the cure for their pain is better. I had to make sure they didn’t slack off. They needed a sense of direction. Goals. Just taking a bunch of kids to camp for a week is nice, but it’s not enough.
Accomplishment Is the Key to Self-Respect
_______
Most “delinquents” (our term then) don’t accomplish a darn thing. They don’t finish what they start. They buy into the failure and feel sorry for themselves. They believe that’s their lot in life.
I had to prove to them that they didn’t have to be that way.
I geared every activity during the week around accomplishment. Depending on the season and location, I had something lined up every day: skiing, mountaineering, boating, archery, swimming, camping, using an ice axe, horsemanship, fishing, survival and rescue, first aid, and so on. I kept a chart with each boy’s name on it, and each one would have to pass the requirements for every activity.
If one of the boys said, “I can’t do it,” we’d work with them until they got it. At the end of the week, I’d gather the kids and show them the chart and say, “You see what you’ve done this week? You’ve accomplished six different things. You know they weren’t easy.” Sometimes they couldn’t believe it themselves, which was fine. I wanted them to actually feel the pride and surprise of accomplishment and carry it with them when they left the camp. If it didn’t sink in immediately, it would eventually.
I also sent the boys back with this message: “The main thing in life is to be able to accomplish something. You have one purpose now, and that’s to serve your time, be good, get out of that place, and go back and finish your high school education.” (They could finish it in the schools, too, since the California Youth Authority/Department of Juvenile Justice was legally required to provide a full high school education.)
I always had a few boys who would say something like, “I’ve always been a dummy and I can’t get a degree.”
“If you want a degree, then go for it,” I’d say. “But you can make good money without a degree.” A degree is preferable, but not having one shouldn’t prevent anyone from doing what truly interests them.
To help the boys focus on possible futures, I made a series of vocational films. They were geared to the times: working with sheet metal, plating, creating antique glass, and other trades. Now it would be all about computers, I’m sure.
As I told interviewer George Hodak in 1988 when we spoke for the LA84 Foundation, “Today, in this world of competition, high finances, high salaries, and big money in sports, I’d say that you have to be an actual expert in more than one field in case you need to change directions due to circumstances beyond your control, like the economy, or because your heart tells you to follow your passion. Just don’t be afraid to make mistakes; they are just the stepping-stones to success.”
My Private Reward
_______
One great reward of running Victory Boys Camp was quite unexpected. I’d be speaking at a church or on a cruise ship when a middle-aged guy would stand up and say, “I was in your camp when I was fourteen. You really turned my life around.”
They did the turning; I only tried to show the way. I still felt great.
A few years ago I spoke to about 250 men at a business club. Afterward an older man approached and shook my hand.
“Louis,” he said, “you probably wouldn’t remember me. My name is …”
When he told me, I said, “Stop. You were from Glendale.”
“How could you remember?”
“After what you did? How could I forget?”
The kid’s neighbors had gone to Europe. He and his buddies went to the beach and picked up a couple of girls. One of them had a bottle of whiskey, so they got drunk. They held the party in the neighbors’ house after breaking in, They ate the neighbors’ food, used their pool, and shacked up on the veranda above the garage. Then, when the girls left, the boys took furniture
from the house and threw it into the pool. Stinkers!
Tough to forget.
He came to my attention when one of the service clubs, the Optimists or the Rotary, called me and said, “This kid’s in real serious trouble.” I took him to camp and straightened him out. Eventually he became the president of an insurance company. Insurance? After he’d caused his neighbors to use theirs? I thought that was pretty funny.
Some men are afraid to say they were at my camp. They’re worried about their reputations. They shouldn’t be. They made it out. They did well. For me, there’s no greater reward than seeing once frightened and unhappy boys change into strong citizens who lead positive lives.
The Mission That Never Ends
_______
It seems that the older I get the more I’m involved with young people. It’s the thrill of a lifetime. One reason is that my books have spread the word and I keep getting letters like this one: “I’m like you, I’m in trouble all the time, but the book has changed me.”
I love hearing from kids who were on the wrong track.
The actual, physical camp is closed, but I didn’t end its mission, which will continue even after I’m gone. In fact, I’m willing to help any kid that’s in trouble, to get him out of his mess, and to get him under an inspirational and stiff disciplinary program. So many kids can be helped, and that’s why even though I couldn’t participate in person at the camp anymore—no more mountaineering—I didn’t abandon the program.
I just sent a young man named Kyle to a special school in Australia. It’s the cream of the crop. He knew my son, Luke, and his wife, Lisa. Kyle was caught in a whirlwind of drugs, but said he was fed up with his life. I paid his way, I paid for the camp. The people who run the place told me they just couldn’t believe how wonderfully he’d changed for the better.
Doing something like that is worth every penny.
KYLE GAUTHIER
When you stop and think about the people you most respect in this world, those you truly admire and look up to, whose words match the truth of their hearts—you realize that you’ve probably known these people for years, maybe even a lifetime. It takes time to build something like that.
At present, I’ve known the name Louis Zamperini for about six months. I met him a single time. And yet I can tell you with all of my heart that I truly love and respect this man.
Six months ago I was about to walk into a beautiful house in the Hollywood Hills, the kind of house that I’d only seen in movies. I was a lost, scared boy who at the time had no sense of hope or direction. Even more daunting, I was curious why a rich, old man whom I’d never met wanted to give a lying, cheating junkie like myself thousands of dollars.
See, in my life then I was the kind of guy who would steal your wallet and then help you look for it. Few people trusted me. I wanted to change, and I’d been accepted to a school in Australia, a Christian organization called Youth With A Mission. But I was broke and this guy didn’t know about the six other failed attempts of sending me away to get better.
So I was all ears when this offer came along.
The first things I saw in the house were Olympic torches, flags, and pictures of him and famous people. I saw sports gear and WWII gear and felt like I had walked into a museum. I thought, Who the hell is this guy!? He must be hardcore.
That meant I had to step up my game.
I put on the most sober, well-put-together, professional face I could and prepared myself for the interrogation I was certain would come. I framed answers in my head (lies) to the expected questions like, “How motivated are you?” “How long have you been clean?” “What are your plans?”
Louis’s daughter-in-law, Lisa, was with me. “Louie, this is Kyle,” she said. “The one going to Australia.”
Louis looked up at me. “Huh? Australia? I love the shopping in Australia.”
My mouth gaped. I sat down as he continued to talk—literally for hours, telling me story after story of sailing through in the Pacific Ocean, of running track, of the strategies he and his gang would use, when he was young, to steal the best pies they could from the local baker. I felt as if I was listening to a kids’ adventure book about the life you dream of living as a child.
But I noticed something even more amazing than the stories—and his life in general: it was the absolute humble heart in every word Louis spoke. It was as if no one that Louis knew, and nothing that had happened in his astounding life, really impressed him as much as they impressed others. He was impressed by something even greater.
I remember looking at a picture of Louis and USC football coach Pete Carroll on the desk. I’ve always been a huge USC fan. I said, “Louis, you know Pete Carroll?!”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, casually. “He keeps calling. He wants me to speak to his team or something.”
He was so nonchalant that I thought that either his age had addled him—Louis was about to turn ninety-seven—or there was something wildly special about him, something that I had never encountered in anyone else.
When I finally left Louis’s house, I was more confused than when I’d arrived. Not once did he mention the money he was giving me. Not once did he ask any of the questions I’d created ready answers for. For some reason he was willing to trust me. I didn’t know why. My plan walking in was to go to Australia as an escape, a way to get clean, to clear my head, and maybe meet a girl—or two. After meeting Louis that plan changed in a way that I couldn’t yet understand. He didn’t just leave me with money. He gave me something bigger through a glimpse of his heart. Now I had to discover what it was.
The school in Australia was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life. I was challenged in ways I didn’t know existed. At times I wasn’t sure I’d make it; sometimes I didn’t want to make it. It seemed easier to quit. I wasn’t afraid of failing. I’d been living with myself for so long, attempting to get better in my own ways, and so often failing, that I was used to it. Now, I was scared of succeeding. I was scared to actually let all the grace and blessings I’d been given change me.
The fear only got worse as I stood before hundreds of people on the beach of Byron Bay, a city with a high incidence of drug abuse, because now I had to make a choice and declare it front of everyone. Fail or succeed? I knew what I desperately wanted.
The moment they raised me from the baptizing waters, the fear was gone. I could finally see for myself the“something” greater, bigger, and special that I had seen in Louis. It was clear why nothing in this world could compare to what was in his heart—because it couldn’t.
No story, no fame, no amount of money, no drug, no drink, no woman can ever compare to the truth and love that Louis knew and helped reveal to me: of having a true, real relationship with Jesus Christ.
When Louis died all I could do was ask, “God, how can I repay this man, thank this man that was so obedient to you and helped change my life?”
The answer became clear: I would devote my entire life to doing the same work Louis did and let God use me to help the lost people of this world, and to love people when they seemingly don’t deserve to be loved—like Louis did for me.
What I’ve Learned
Louie airborne, 1983, challenging himself as always.
Challenge Yourself
_______
In August 1957, Olympian Keith Wegeman and I decided to climb to the top of Gannett Glacier in Wyoming, and make an inspirational film to show at the Victory Boys Camp. Gannett was the largest perennial ice and snow field in the Rocky Mountains of North America. It rests on the east and north slopes of Gannett Peak, which at 13,809 feet is the highest mountain in Wyoming, in the Wind River Range.
Gannett Glacier is about 110 miles south of the Grand Tetons, but neither Keith nor I had ever been there. Both of us were pilots, though, so we rented an airplane and overflew the vicinity to pinpoint our destination. We had a picture to help us.
Afterward, we took the plane back, gathered up all the equipment we needed, including our skis and a
movie camera, and drove to Dubois, Wyoming—the closest town. The ranger, who was also the sheriff, gave us some general directions to the glacier; since there was no easy access or modern trail then, we had to find our own way in. A farmer rented us a horse and a mule, and we hiked to Fish Hatchery Road, where we picked up the trail. The glacier base was about fifty miles into the wilderness area, and that meant elk, moose, and bear country.
Keith’s brother, Paul, had planned to come with us, but backed out at the last minute. Instead, my wife, Cynthia, came. I had misgivings, but she insisted. “You’re not the only adventurous person in this family,” she insisted, and she was right. For our honeymoon, I had suggested going either to Hawaii or to a war buddy’s cabin near the Eel River, south of Eureka, California. Cynthia chose the mountains. As a Miami native, whose family had money and had sent her to the finest schools, she knew enough about lying around on the beach. “Let’s do the other,” she said. We had a great time. We swam, rode horses, fished. Cynthia got to be a crack shot with the .22. When she almost stepped on a rattlesnake she whipped out the pistol and plugged it in the head.
It took us a couple of days to get to the glacier. The only people we met on the way were a couple of sheepherders. We camped the first night at Ink Wells, the name of which refers to a trio of lakes, all pitch-black, and whose depth had never been measured.
The next day we reached the Wind River Wilderness area. The Wind River is fed from the Gannett Glacier. We crossed the river and then went up about five miles toward the glacier, and found the camp area and a huge, sturdy teepee. We believed it belonged to the legendary Chief Washakie, who had been the head of the Eastern Shoshones, and lived to 102.
We set up base camp and built a big fire pit with small boulders. To stay warm as night settled in we used a trick I knew. Boulders don’t get burning hot, they just get warm. So you take one, wrap a towel around it, and put it in your sleeping bag. You’ll sleep like a baby.
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