Private Desmond Doss walked into the bloodiest battle of World War II. He had enlisted as a medic and after the war was over, he was awarded a medal of honor and branded a hero.
But when Doss arrived for basic training, he was not treated as a hero, but as an outcast. He was skinny, soft spoken, refused to bear arms, carried a Bible in his pocket and prayed each night, while other recruits taunted and threw shoes at him. Nonetheless, Doss refused to leave no matter what they said or did to him.
At one point his officers convened a meeting to discharge him on the grounds of mental instability, but the discharge was never approved. But they continued to persecute him, denying him passes to see his wife and also forbidding him to see his brother before he was about to leave for the Navy. Still, Doss never gave up.
As a child he witnessed his dad, a WWI veteran, pull a gun on his uncle during a disagreement. While his mom called the police, Desmond hid the gun and watched his father being handcuffed and loaded into a police car. The youngster vowed never to touch a gun again.
His siblings said, as a kid, Desmond would never give up and was always compassionate towards others. When news of an accident nearby was announced on the radio, and a plea for blood donors went out, Desmond walked three miles to the hospital to donate blood. Two days later there was another request for more blood donors and Desmond walked another three miles to donate blood.
Desmond may have been small in stature, but he had a lot of courage. He needed it, because Japanese soldiers focused on taking out medics. Often they would let the infantry get by just to pick off a medic, because if they killed the medics, it broke Dossn the moral of the men. Yet this man wasn’t remembered for his role as a medic.
Fighting took place April, 1945; the battlefield located on top of a sheer 400 foot cliff, fortified with a network of Japanese machine gun nests and traps. It was nicknamed Hacksaw Ridge for the steep cliff, which was the key to winning the battle of Okinawa. It was here that Doss spent twelve hours up on the ridge rescuing men by lowering them to the ground in a sling. He averaged one man every ten minutes, before he was struck with seventeen pieces of shrapnel. He waited for five hours before someone was able to come and carry him on a stretcher through intense enemy attack.
As they were carrying him, he saw a guy get shot in the head. Desmond rolled off the stretcher, patched the man up and gave the stretcher to the wounded man. While waiting for help, his left arm was shattered by a sniper’s bullet. He fashioned a splint out of a rifle stalk and crawled to an aid station.
By now, no one was making fun of Desmond Doss. One of his fellow recruits, who had ridiculed him, now esteemed him as one of the bravest men alive, after Desmond ended up saving his life. When the medic lost his Bible on the battlefield, a company of men risked their lives to find it for him. Even a Japanese soldier recalled having Desmond in his sights, but every time he went to fire, his gun jammed.
During the remaining years of his life, while most soldiers tried to forget, Desmond Doss told his story over and over again, about God keeping him alive, so he could save the lives of others.
Read more by Joan on her page kindersleysocial.ca/webarchive/joan
