Don't Give Up, Don't Give In

by Louis Zamperini

  WE HAD FIGURED it would take all day to climb to the top of the glacier, but we got a late start. Rather than wait another day, when the weather might not be good, Keith and I decided that to make the top we’d just have to move a little more quickly than planned. That meant leaving behind some of the climbing gear. Should we take the rope and crampons, or the ice axe? It seemed we’d use the ice axe more. Also, we were Olympians, and in top shape. We figured we could actually climb it in half a day.

  We set out under sunny skies, wearing khakis and army boots. But just to be on the safe side, I told my wife, “If we’re not back by dark, there’s something wrong. Saddle the horse, ride out, and get help.”

  Keith and I started up. I shot some footage and we made great progress. The skies stayed clear—and then out of nowhere a storm hit. Suddenly we had snow and lightning. In order to avoid being struck, we had to toss our metal ice axes a safe distance away. It was tough to hold them anyway, since our fingers were starting to cramp and freeze in the wind. We needed to find a windbreak and luckily noticed an indentation in the ice. We fashioned a little cave that we could fit into and wait it out.

  “I think we made a mistake trying to climb the north face,” Keith said. He was right. The snow there was always fluffy and dangerous. On the south face the sun hit the snow. It would melt and then harden again overnight, creating an icepack. Very sturdy. But on the north face you could step in the wrong place and kill yourself by falling into a crevasse that you never knew was underfoot.

  The storm was short-lived, but it was growing colder. We sat in our cave trying to decide whether to keep going or turn back.

  We went on. No storm now, just low-hanging cloud cover. It wasn’t much farther to the top, and just as we got there the sky lifted. In the panoramic window between the cloud bottoms and the horizon we could see the mountains in every direction. It occurred to me then that the whole climb had been a metaphor: We suffered, we struggled. It was brutally cold and painful. It was just like life, and the reward was this glorious sight. A heaven on earth.

  This beautiful vision was sadly temporary. The sun began to sink quickly and that killed our reverie. We’d taken half a day to get to the top of the glacier, we’d been transfixed by the vista, and now it would be dark in thirty minutes. You don’t want to be 13,000 feet up on a glacier at night. We had to get down in a hurry.

  Fortunately, Keith and I were both competent boot skiers and glissaders. And luckily we’d made the right decision to take the ice axes. (Of course, we should also have brought the rope. Never climb without a rope!) You hold the ice axe’s T-handle and put the sharp end in the snow. Then you literally ski on your boots. To increase speed you lean forward. To slow down, pull back on the axe. The north side was too risky because of the hidden crevices, so we went straight down the icy south slope. We needed less than thirty minutes to get down, at speeds of almost thirty miles an hour. I can’t say we enjoyed the glide: There’s nothing like an icy wind to ruin your day when you’re not dressed for it.

  By the time we were down it was pitch-dark. We found the gear we’d left at the bottom lip of the glacier. And the mule. We put on warm jackets and dug out some matches. We tied ourselves together with a rope and lit match after match trying to avoid falling into the stream while working our way back to my wife.

  Eventually we saw a blaze. Cynthia had started the fire. But instead of saddling the horse and riding out to get help, she sat there crying. I fired a pistol I’d packed into the air, to let her know we were nearby. When she finally saw us, she came running up. I was glad she’d stuck around.

  Keith and I had been overconfident—okay, idiots—to believe we could race the day to the top, with half our equipment, and get down in daylight. We’d been arrogant. At least we’d both had survival training, and knew how to use our equipment.

  That kept us from being dead idiots.

  That said, I’m glad we made the climb. No matter how old you are, don’t stop challenging yourself with new experiences, but be smart about it, please.

  Learn to Adapt

  _______

  Under the Older Americans Act of 1973, my church was designated as a proposed site for a nutritional program for seniors. I interviewed with the city of Los Angeles to run it, and before I got back home they had called. My wife said, “You got the job.”

  I was already working with young people through my camp, and speaking to schools. Now, working with the elderly, I had to get up to speed and learn about nutrition. I had to create the proper atmosphere at the lunch program to reduce loneliness. I had to help find housing. I got close to the seniors, and as must happen in life, some of them died.

  The death of someone you know takes a lot out of you, and even though death was familiar to me from the war, I had to learn to cope with it all over again. I took classes at USC, read books on stress and burnout, and discovered that burnout is at least in part a response to chronic unreleased stress. One way to deal with stress is to stay as active as you can, and burn off the burnout.

  When George Hodak interviewed me for the LA84 Foundation, he asked if my athletic and war injuries—and, frankly, my age—had limited my ability to ski or skateboard or otherwise stay active. This is what I told him:

  You have to learn to adapt. You can’t give up. My bad knee is painful, and a bad ankle and back as well—and the pain is always there. But what am I supposed to do? Pull in my wings and be grounded? You have to use unrelenting determination and exercise a positive attitude. I had to learn to ski with a certain style that eliminated the pressure on my knee. I found that going down the steepest runs at Mammoth is less painful than skiing on the bunny slopes below. So I prefer to ski the hazardous slopes. And then, of course, I skateboard every day to keep myself tuned up and sharpened. I think my skateboarding shakes up a few people, especially some of the old-timers in the church. When I go down the street and make a run to the mailbox I’ve seen people stop their cars and look back to be sure their eyes aren’t deceiving them. They see this gray-haired old buzzard weaving down the street. (Laughter.) I guess it is kind of a shock to them. It doesn’t bother me. I just think of myself as a kid. I treat myself as a youngster. I ignore the aches and the pains. I have to.

  It’s like I always say: You can’t just talk about how you live your life. You have to live it.

  I know it works, as this letter I got a few years ago demonstrates. (I save them all and wish I still had time to answer every one as well.)

  “My experiences during my formative years initially led me to believe that the measure of a man is based on the size of his paycheck or his house or how many goals he can accomplish at the expense of others. I now know that the measure of a man is based on how he lives his life each day, and what he contributes rather than takes from society. Thank you, Mr. Zamperini.”

  I think that says it all.

  Commitment and Perseverance Pay Off

  _______

  People often ask me what I’ve learned in life that is worth remembering and passing on. Here’s something I say, especially to young people: It will be tough to amount to anything unless you commit to your goal and stay the course. You can’t give in to doubt. You can’t give in to pain.

  Becoming a great athlete, writer, businessman, whatever, doesn’t just happen. You have to reach deep within yourself to discover if you’re willing to make the necessary sacrifices. If not, choose another goal, and ask the question again.

  This is the great lesson of my life: Never give up. If you want to be a champion you have to go after what you want tooth and nail. This requires perseverance. If you’re on the right track, stay on that path until you’ve finished.

  Take athletes: Many are very good, and some even reach the threshold of greatness, but only the athlete who is disciplined, who uses continual self-analysis for improvement of both the physical and mental aspect of his or her being, will ever have a chance to take a step beyond that threshold and taste excellence and glory.

 
Even if you don’t end up as the greatest at what you do, as long as you do your best you should be satisfied. After all, there are only so many places on the Olympic team. There is only one boxing champion at a time. A corporation has one CEO. The country has one president. Getting to the top takes natural talent and luck as well as hard work. That shouldn’t discourage you from aspiring. You can’t control the first two, but you are in charge of the last—which puts you in a position to discover if you have natural talent, and see what luck brings. Don’t shortchange yourself in the effort department, no matter how tough it is. We can’t all be champions, but we can give whatever is in us to give.

  My older brother, Pete, put it all in sharp perspective for me when I was young and trying to become a championship runner: “Isn’t one minute of pain worth a lifetime of glory?”

  You’re Only as Old as You Feel

  _______

  My college years at USC were about more than running. I also liked to have a good time. What college student doesn’t?

  In those days, when society people took a vacation they called the newspaper, which printed their plans. “Mr. and Mrs. Edward Talbott are going to the West Indies for two weeks, from January 17 to February 2.” Today we wouldn’t dream of making that information public. There’d be so many criminals in front of the house they’d have to draw straws to see who got to rob it first.

  Weddings were also announced ahead of time in the paper. Harry Read and I saw that as an opportunity to have some fun. Our idea: Two smart and adventurous young men could show up, get lost in the crowd, and eat and drink for free. And meet girls. We were wedding crashers.

  We tried it first at a wedding at the Knickerbocker Hotel. We wore black suits and white shirts and slicked back our hair. We lingered near the entrance and eavesdropped to pick up any information we could. Then when a car pulled up and everyone got out, we’d shake the new arrivals’ hands like we were with the wedding party—perhaps mentioning a name or two—and walked in with the group.

  Once inside, we could have made a beeline for the buffet, or scouted out the young ladies. Instead we found the older women, the aunts and grandmothers to whom no one paid much attention—especially if they didn’t look like they were having a great time. We admired their jewelry and their dresses, brought them food and drinks, talked, and had a dance or two before moving on to chasing the younger gals. We sincerely enjoyed ourselves, and had some unexpectedly interesting conversations.

  We also figured that if someone wanted to toss us out, our new friends might vouch for us as well-behaved and harmless. If that didn’t happen, we would, of course, just tell the truth—slightly embellished. “We’re athletes from USC and we read about the wedding and just couldn’t resist attending.”

  Unrestrained enthusiasm worked wonders, especially if we dressed well.

  We crashed eight weddings.

  Now, I’m ninety-seven, and about thirty years ago I finally understood that our “transactions” with the aunts and grandmothers was actually a two-way street—only they didn’t let on and we weren’t smart enough to realize it. They knew exactly what we were up to and enjoyed every minute of our doting attention. They were way ahead of us in years, as well as in wisdom.

  Now that I’m a senior citizen, I love it when young people pay attention to me. Plus, I get to find out what the young people are up to—which keeps me young. And I might just be able to pass along something that will come in handy for them as time goes by.

  I sure hope so.

  Free Advice

  _______

  1. When I get on an airplane, before I even sit down, I look around for the exit doors. When the flight attendant does the safety demonstration, I already know where I’m going.

  Awareness equals survival.

  When I walk down the street I can spot guys, from half a block away, that could harm me. I cross over. If they cross, too, then I head for a store or wherever there are people. Once, I saw two kids coming down Hollywood Boulevard, their eyes fixed on me. They figured the old man’s got money in his pocket. A woman in front of me was pulling a basket with groceries in it. I leaped over the basket. When they saw me leap, they realized I wasn’t an easy mark. They turned and went the other way.

  Awareness saves your life.

  I credit physiology classes I took from Dr. Roberts at USC with making me aware of the importance of always being aware. As I told the USC Family magazine in 2003, “I tell kids to be aware of what’s going on around them, in the street, in class, to size up the situation, think of the consequences. It’s the one thing schools neglect to teach in the classrooms, and it’s the answer to all the choices we make and to all survival in this world.

  “Dr. Roberts (my physiology professor) called it mind-over-matter. But you could also call it wisdom.”

  2. I once walked into a bank and saw a big burly guy and his girlfriend. They weren’t standing in line. They had fistfuls of money, and panic on their faces. And a gun. He came at me as I opened the door. He put the gun in my face and said, “Step aside!” A few bills fell to the floor from the girl’s hand. She stooped to pick them up.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, and did what he asked. They ran out.

  For a moment, the bank was so quiet you could have heard those bills drop. I scanned the room. Those who had watched the holdup stood there, eyes glazed. Suddenly, one man ran toward the door behind me. “Oh, oh, oh … I’m getting outta here!” he yelled as he pushed through. Like sheep, everyone followed him. Why? The bank was safe now, but who knew what was happening on the street? The police were probably on their way, and the guy had a gun.

  I would have had a twenty-minute wait to make a deposit, but I just walked up to a teller and was first in line.

  We’ve all read stories about someone who, faced with a gun or some other weapon, argues.

  “Give me your wallet!”

  “But …”

  Or they try to be a hero.

  I remember a famous attorney—they called him a fighter—who came out of a nightclub in Hollywood and got robbed in the parking lot. Being an attorney, he tried to reason with the thief. He didn’t use his much-praised head, and got shot and killed instead. People said, “Well, he got shot because he was a fighter; he fights back at anything.”

  Well, no more. If a guy’s got a gun, and you’re not on the battlefield, humble yourself.

  3. I married Cynthia Applewhite—the girl of my dreams—in 1946. She died in 2001. We had fifty-five years together, raised two great kids, had a wonderful grandson and a terrific son-and daughter-in-law. Cynthia and I also let each other lead our own lives. You know what I did, which took me away from home much of the time. Cynthia was an artist, a published novelist, an adventurer who once traveled around the world for three months on tramp steamers. She was always coming up with something.

  When I worked at my local church, because of my reputation I would occasionally be asked for advice and counsel on how to keep a marriage together. It’s a great responsibility, and a rough game. When times are tough you have to keep the parties from jumping on each other.

  Here’s what I did: I talked to the husband and wife separately. I’d tell each of them something my brother Pete once told me. “When you’re wrong, admit it. When you’re right, keep your mouth shut.” I’d also tell the husband: “Whatever you do, do not tell your wife what I just told you.” To the wife, I’d say: “This is the secret to a happy marriage but under no circumstance tell your husband what I just told you.”

  Many of those couples stayed together a long time.

  Lessons of the Olympic Spirit

  At seventy-nine, carrying the torch through Playa del Rey, California, for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.

  It’s About People

  _______

  The Olympic Spirit is not about winning. It’s not about gold medals.

  It’s about people.

  When I came home after the 1936 Olympics, I wrote down what I thought about my e
xperience. Then I put it in a drawer. Forty-eight years later, when I was asked to run with the torch for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, I dug it out, rewrote it, and showed it to the Olympic Committee:

  “The Olympic Spirit is like the wind. You don’t see it coming or going but you hear its voice. You feel the power of its presence. You enjoy the results of its passing. And then it becomes a memory, an echo of days of glory.”

  To my surprise they asked to use it. Not bad for a nineteen-year-old kid. I’m glad I saved it.

  You Have to Train to Carry a Torch

  _______

  You’ve done your best in training. You’ve made the Olympic team. That’s the goal: make the team. You can’t put the euphoria into words. You discover a world beyond the competition, meeting foreign athletes who have had the same thrilling experience. The camaraderie binds you.

  When the Games end you want to do it again.

  Most of us don’t get to go back, unless we are honored by being asked to be part of the worldwide Olympic torch relay.

  Running with the torch is among my most cherished memories. I ran five times: Los Angeles/1984, Atlanta/1996, Nagano/1998, Sydney/2000, and Salt Lake City/2002. That’s a record.

  The flame symbolizes the theft of fire from Zeus, by Prometheus, which he then gave to man. The modern-day torch relay started in 1936, ending at the Berlin Olympics, in which I competed. The flame was lit by the sun reflecting off a concave mirror in Olympia, Greece, and transported over 3,187 kilometers by 3,331 runners in twelve days and eleven nights from Greece to Berlin. (In the movie version of Unbroken, my grandson, Clay, plays the final relay runner who lights the Olympic flame in the stadium.)

  When I was asked to run in Los Angeles in 1984, my whole family was excited. My daughter, Cissy, even wore shorts and running shoes to the event and ran as close to me as the police escort would allow. She kept saying, “That’s my dad,” to everyone in the crowd that lined the street.

  For the 1998 Winter Olympics, Cissy flew with me to Japan to once again run beside me and cheer me on just out of camera range. I carried the torch in Joetsu, near where I had been imprisoned more than fifty years earlier.