HEROISM AT HACKSAW RIDGE

            How fitting it is that Hacksaw Ridge is showing at movie cinemas this weekend.  This heralded film is based on the true story of Desmond Doss.  Doss joined the United States Army on April 1, 1942.  Of the 16 million men in uniform who fought in WW II, only 431 received the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Desmond Doss received his medal three and a half years after he enlisted.  What makes his honor so unusual is the fact that he never actually “fought”.  Being a conscientious objector, he refused to take up arms and he never killed a single enemy combatant.  Yet what he did was quite remarkable.  When President Harry S. Truman awarded him the medal of honor he said to him: I’m proud of you.  You really deserve this. I consider this a greater honor than being president.

            So what was it that Desmond Doss did that made him worthy of such high esteem?   While serving as a medic in the Pacific theater on the islands of Guam and Leyte, Doss went about the business of saving lives rather than taking lives.  With guns blazing, he ran to treat a fallen comrade and carried him back to safety.  By the time they came to Okinawa, Doss had already been awarded two bronze stars for his valor.  In the battle of Okinawa at the Maeda Escarpment, referred to by American vets as “hacksaw ridge”,

a full retreat was ordered.  While one-hundred or more soldiers lay wounded and dying, Doss vowed anew to rescue as many as he possibly could.  With an iron will and with selfless courage, on May the 5^th, 1945, he saved at least seventy-five lives.

          Doss never set out to be a hero.  His journey was filled with all manner of negativity.  As a man of devout faith, Desmond took the Ten Commandments seriously.  He was often ostracized, bullied and made an object of disdain by fellow soldiers.  Intimidations were nonstop.  One warned him saying, “When we get into combat, I’ll make sure you don’t come back alive.”  Most, if not all of his officers, viewed him as a liability.  False accusations were made in an attempt to label him as “mentally unfit” to serve.   Near the end of his enlistment his arm was shattered by a sniper’s bullet.  While wounded and losing blood, he insisted that his litter bearers take another man before him.  He was constantly putting the safety of others ahead of his own.  Prior to being honorably discharged in 1946, Desmond developed tuberculosis.  Corporal Doss died on March 23, 2006, and is buried in Chattanooga National Cemetery.   Desmond Doss’ life reminds us of Jesus’ words:  greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends (Jn.15:13). 

                                                                                    Terry Siverd / Cortland Church Of Christ

Note:  The story of Desmond Doss first came to my attention last year when one our deacons, Keith Chopic (a United States Air Force Veteran), made reference to Doss’ heroic actions in an uplifting devotional message he presented at one of our monthly midweek Simple Supper gatherings.