The Reason for Skin the Color of a Yellow Flotation Device by Allie

The Reason for Skin the Color of a Yellow Flotation Device by Allie - February 2015 Scholarship Essay

I believe that it is a reasonable assertion to claim that any book that is noteworthy enough to become a successful movie is worth reading. In my own experience, I was required to read such a story the summer before my first AP English class and I was loathing the idea of required reading over vacation. After all, no one wants to spend his or her coveted time at the beach doing homework. Yet, there I was, cracking open a war biography. I opened that book with the expectation of endless war jargon and countless references to war tactics that I was completely in the dark about. What I actually found was a book that I will forever recommend for its story.

In the biography, Unbroken, the life of Louis Zamperini is chronicled from his delinquent childhood in California, to his Olympic running success in New York and Germany, to his life as a Japanese POW in World War II, to his life after the war. Reading a story that took a young, lively, vivacious, and record-breaking American Olympian straight out of the fast track to stardom and to a place comparable to Hell, I was awed by the fact that he was an ordinary American. He went through the same first world struggles as all American citizens of the time and inched his way up the athletic totem pole, until the top was within arms’ reach; he worked hard in the most genuine sense and was able to pull wins from within himself with nothing but his own will and perseverance. By the standards of today, he did not deserve to be thrown into a situation that would challenge his will to live. He did not deserve to be placed at death's door on numerous occasions. He certainly did not deserve the physical and psychological abuse that he suffered. One of the striking facts about this story is the fact that he never looked at his experience as something he did or did not deserve. He survived and came back to a life almost equally as hard because the scars and bruises that would forever be in his life; still, he carried on and died in July of 2014 at ninety-seven years old. As a society, we seem to forget that life does not dole out experiences based on what we do or do not deserve and not everything will always be fair. I was uncomfortable by the fact that the everyday 'tragedies' that seem so prevalent in society and my own life today, would have been benign and ludicrous to someone spending years in the most formidable Japanese POW camps. The privileged life that has overtaken countless communities is enviable; yet, there is no perspective on the rest of the world. Growing up within a protective shell keeps us secluded from the unclean and tumultuous world that is reality.

I believe that teenagers should read this book because it highlights the cold, cruel reality of our history. It details a man that should be a hero and role model to everyone. Admittedly, he survived more than most of us could ever endure. He did this for his country and he never expected anything; he never held the belief that he deserved more than anyone else. He certainly never placed himself on a pedestal. In a society driven by expectations, we should understand that not everyone gets such luxuries as many of us enjoy, and life is rarely fair. Nonetheless, how you deal with the hard events and the times that require you to give everything within your being is much more crucial than what you gain. I feel that it is important that we remember such a mentality as we continue to move quickly into the middle of twenty-first century and such a mentality is quickly disappearing.