In her book, Unbroken, author Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of Olympic runner and World War II POW survivor Louie Zamperini. As a young teenager living in Southern California, Louie was better-known for causing trouble. Thieving was his hobby, especially if the loot was food. Louie was often in trouble at school for brawling and cared nothing about getting good grades. His poor Italian immigrant parents worried about him and tried to reel him in. Aware of his inadequacies, Louie tried to make up for it by scrubbing the kitchen floor, overhauling the engine of his family's sedan, and giving away the goods he stole. Hillenbrand wrote, "Louie would give away anything, whether it was his or not." Louie's older brother Pete tried to reform him by getting Louie to run track, but even that seemed to fail.

One day Louie got angry about doing a chore and decided to run away. His parents pleaded with him to stay, but when he refused, they sent him off as lovingly as they knew how. Louie's mother made him a sandwich and his father held out his hand to give him two dollars, a great deal of money for their family at the time. Louie took the gifts and left. He and a friend hitchhiked to Los Angeles, and then jumped a train headed north.

Running away was not the adventure Louie hoped for. They barely escaped an oven-like boxcar in which they had been locked. They were caught and forced at gunpoint to leave the train—while it was moving. They had to walk for several days and "wound up sitting on the ground in a rail yard, filthy, bruised, sunburned, and wet, sharing a can of stolen beans." A train went past, and Louie could see passengers sitting comfortably inside. He recalled, "I saw … beautiful white tablecloths and crystal on the tables, and food, people laughing and enjoying themselves and eating. And [I was] sitting here shivering, eating a miserable can of beans."

Hillenbrand writes that Louie "remembered the money in his father's hand, the fear in his mother's eyes as she offered him a sandwich. He stood up and headed home."