War is a big part of American history. It always seems as though an anniversary of some famous battle, or invasion or liberation is happening every few days. 

This past July marked 100 years since the start of World War I. For the next four years, we will celebrate and mourn many centennials. In three years, we will look back on the day that The United States entered this Great War.

As these historic dates pass and as war wages in the east, we should take this time to read about war. To understand how far we’ve come and how far we still have left to go.

Even if you don’t enjoy reading war books, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, there is a lesson or awakening in every one of them.

Looking back at this past July, another significant event occurred. The death of man named Louis Zamperini.  The book about his experience during World War II is hitting the mainstream again this December in the form of a movie directed by Angelina Jolie.

Released in 2010, the book is called “Unbroken” written by Laura Hillenbrand. 

“Unbroken” is a survival story about the former Olympic runner turned World War II soldier who survived a plane crash into the Pacific Ocean. He then spent 47 days drifting on a raft. 

For a over a month, Zamperini and two other survivors drank rainwater, ate raw fish, fended off shark attacks and were strafed multiple times by a Japanese bomber.

Only two of them lived long enough to reach land. But, the horror didn’t stop there. The Japanese Navy on the Marshall Islands captured Zamperini and his fellow soldier. 

Zamperini was held prisoner in an internment camp and tortured for over two years. He was only 27-years-old at the time and, recently, he was able to pass away in the comfort of his own home at the age of 97.

I’m currently reading this book and I encourage you to read it, too. It follows Zamperini, and leads the readers into the darkest moments of his life and state of mind.

He went in as a prisoner of war and came out as a war hero. But, not without physical and mental scars. Hillenbrand is not only telling a story, but also illustrating it.

It reminds me another World War II survival story written by the survivor himself. I read “Night” by Elie Wiesel in high school and I still think about it. 

This first hand account of life inside some of the worst concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, was published only 10 years after his liberation. 

His memoir gives an eerie atmosphere as it starts before his home’s Nazi takeover. It is apparent by his descriptions that it is coming and you almost want to stop reading and pretend it never got there.

I have a soft spot for children and teenagers dragged into war. In the fiction book “All Quiet on the Western Front,” Paul Baumer enlists in the German Army of World War I with his classmates.

 They’re excited to become soldiers together, but that excitement soon crumbles like the state of Germany around them. Paul can’t hold on to his friends so he holds onto the vow to fight against the hate that pits all young men like him against each other because of the color of their uniform. 

It’s books like these that makes 8 a.m. classes seem like heaven.