Louie, a gifted athlete, undergoes a dramatic physical transformation as his body adapts to the demands of his time at sea and in the POW camp. As Louie progresses from an impressive physical machine to “a dead body breathing” (179), his spirit appears to be able to maintain its strength. It is not Louie’s athletic body that gets him through the war, but his tenacious spirit. Louie cannot be emotionally nor psychologically broken by his experiences though his physical body suffers greatly.

After the war, both Louie’s body and spirit struggle when he copes with his post-traumatic stress by drinking excessively on a regular basis. Louie’s brief period of alcohol abuse ends when he reconciles with God after hearing the sermons of Billy Graham. In this situation as well, Louie’s spirit self enables his physical self to heal, leading him well into his nineties.

Louie’s decision to become a born-again Christian enables the reader to draw a parallel between his running career and his subsequent survival in World War II and the Bible passage 2 Timothy 4:7: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

The religious significance of the symbol of a race echoes the literal significance of races, specifically running races, to Louie.