As a boy in California in the 1920s, Louie Zamperini was a study in uncorralled energy and defiance: at age two he escaped through an open window and ran naked down the street of his hometown, at ten he was the kid who stole the pie off the windowsill and ran like hell, at fifteen he was running away from home to ride the rails. At the point when his life could have taken a seriously wrong turn, his older brother channeled Zamperini's energy into running, and within a year, he was breaking records. His fierce determination took him all the way to the 1936 Olympics, and within sight of becoming the first runner ever to break the 4 minute mile. Then his life, like that of his whole generation, was interrupted by Pearl Harbor; overnight Louie Zamperini went from athlete to Army Air Corps bombardier. And that was just the beginning of an incredible odyssey of determination and survival that forced him to draw upon every resource within himself to overcome seemingly insurmountable circumstances, took him halfway around the world - to hell and back - and only truly began when he returned home.
