ESPN reported, "Louis Zamperini, an Olympic distance runner and World War II veteran who survived 47 days on a raft in the Pacific after his bomber crashed, then endured two years in Japanese prison camps, has died. He was 97.

Zamperini enlisted in the Army before Pearl Harbor and was a bombardier on a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber in World War II. He and his crew were searching for a downed B-24 when their plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean, killing eight of the 11 men. He and one of the other surviving crew members drifted for 47 days on a raft in shark-infested waters before being captured by Japanese forces. He spent more than two years as a prisoner of war, surviving torture."

Zamperini's story of survival is being made into a movie directed by Angelina Jolie. Jolie said, "It is a loss impossible to describe. We are all so grateful for how enriched our lives are for having known him. We will miss him terribly."

Unfortunately, the ESPN article failed to mention the source of Zamperini's resilience, hope, and forgiveness—Christ. After the war, he spent years battling PTSD, alcoholism, rage, and bitterness towards his captors, especially a brutal guard named "The Bird." But in her book Unbroken, author Lauren Hildebrand describes how Zamperini accepted Christ at a Billy Graham crusade. Hildebrand writes, "He was [no longer] the worthless, broken, forsaken man that The Bird had striven to make of him. In a single silent moment his rage, fear, humiliation, and helplessness had fallen away. That morning he believed he was a new creation."