To begin with, Louie's military experience was one that was full of ups and downs. The novel and the movie accurately show of Louie's experience with other members of his flight crew and their interactions with one another. One such experience was at the climax of the story, when Louie and his crew suffered engine failure while on an attempted …show more content…
One such thing that was the same throughout both was the amount of cruelty that the prisoners were forced to go through. They were mentally and physically tortured, starved, and treated very poorly overall. A major difference between the movie and the novel at this point was the arrival of the "Bird." The "Bird" was a nickname given by the prisoners to a particularly cruel officer named Watanabe Mitsushiro. In the movie, the "Bird" was already stationed at the camp when Louie arrived, but in the book Louie had already been in the camp for a time before the "Bird" arrived. From this point on, the movie and the book have many similarities. One such similarity is the immediate interest that the "Bird" showed in Louie. The "Bird" was extremely cruel and violent towards the prisoners and in particular towards Louie. He was vicious and relentless in his cruelty towards Louie, but it was portrayed differently in the movie and the book. In the book, the "Bird" was a psychopath and would sometimes be seen frothing at the mouth while beating an unfortunate prisoner. He would then force the men to do humiliating deeds, much of the time driving the poor man to the brink of insanity. Yet even though he hated the prisoners, he always asked their forgiveness once the beatings stopped. He would even be seen sobbing and comforting those whom he had violently …show more content…
One that you can severely hurt someone, not just physically, with your actions. They can change the lives of those that they are directed towards, leaving them scarred or unstable. The past is nothing more than an instruction manual, a guide if you will. We must learn lessons from the past and do our best to keep from making the same mistakes. What those men had to endure in the prisoner-of-war camps was terrible and wrong and was a perfect example of being kind to your fellow