Unbroken, Part 2

I finished the book Unbroken last Saturday after I logged some thoughts here.  Great, great read.  I was speaking of the book at work, and a coworker directed me to another associate in the office, someone whose grandfather appears at times in the book.  I knew the associate, as we joined the firm at the same time and thus we have done several trainings side by side.  He sits on my floor, so today I decided to talk a walk after I got the strange yet common sensation that my eyes and my computer screen had been spending too much time together.  I found Ben at his desk.  It was around lunch time, so he was loosed from his work and was free to talk...

In the unlikely but true World War II story told in Unbroken, the protagonist Louis Zamperini shared a bunker with 15 other men in his time in the war on a military base in the Pacific.  At the end of the war, only he and three others were still alive out of the 16 total men.  Of this small group was Jesse Stay, my coworker's grandfather.  Very cool to learn that I was close to a small piece of the story even in my relatively nondescript workday.  I was riveted as Ben spoke of his grandfather, who passed away in 2008.  Unbroken's author Laura Hillenbrand had already conducted interview after interview with him prior to his passing.  These began in 2000.  The book wasn't published until 2010, so for 10 years Hillenbrand labored.  Ben mentioned that his grandfather gave her material from his unpublished memoirs which, though unpublished, serve as a vibrant chronicle of history for his family.