'Unbroken'

My grandfather, Forrest Leroy Packard, was a prisoner of war during World War II.  He was on Wake Island when Pearl Harbor was bombed and then captured by the Japanese days later on Wake Island.
Grandpa's story has always been a main focal point in our family and a very interesting and tender story in the history of the Packard family.  Grandpa had 16 children at the time he and grandma decided it would be okay for him to go over to Wake Island and work for a construction company to try and make some extra money to help pay off the farm faster.  It would only be for a year and then they would be debt free.  They had no idea, that the one year they planned on grandpa being gone, would turn into WWII and 5 yrs as a POW in Japan.
When grandpa came home, after the war was over and he was rescued, he was a changed man - had lost most of his teeth, was in crippling health and had lost a lot of his mental sharpness and awareness.  He was a completely different man, never to be the same again.  My cousin, Dee, and some other family members, have taken the opportunity to research materials, history and even grandpa's letters and memories and have compiled them all into a book for our family use.  I have read the book once or twice.
This movie had been advertised for months - to come out on Christmas Day.  Our family decided to go see it the day after Christmas.  I thought I was prepared for it.  I was mistaken.  It was my un-doing.  I was fine through most of it...but then my thoughts went to grandpa and some of the experiences on the screen were one and the same as my grandpa's in the book.  He was tortured, starved, abused, lost, and almost died.  I sobbed through those parts, realizing the strength grandpa must have found in the Gospel and his family back home, and the hope he must have had to return home to them someday.  In the movie, the man was a POW for just over 2 years - grandpa was held captive for just under 5 years. I cannot even fathom the details of those 5 years.  It's more than I can wrap my mind around, and yet, I just saw it on the movie screen, brought to life and it tore me apart.  I now have an even higher level of admiration and love for my grandpa, for enduring and living through what must have seemed like a blackness and despair like no other.If not for his faith and love for his Savior, his loving family and the eternal plan he knew and understood, I am sure he would have come home a broken and defeated man.
But I am so grateful and proud to say, that just as the hero in this movie returned home unbroken and alive, so did my sweet Grandpa Forrest Leroy Packard.