Desmond T. Doss

"I was working as a carpenter in defense work in a shipyard in Newport News, Virginia, and my boss offered me a deferment. But I did not feel it was essential work, so I refused because I was in good health and I did not want to be known as a 4-F or draft dodger, and I felt it was an honor to serve God and country. I didnt feel like I was better than anyone else. I could serve my country for twenty-one dollars a month. Thats what we got when we went in. We had a joke in the Army:You know how much I get? No. Twenty-one dollars a day! What? Yep, once a month."

"I was working in Newport News, Virginia, in a shipyard in defense work. I could have been deferred. In fact, my boss even offered to defer me, but I was in good health and I felt like it would be an honor to serve God and country. So, I didnt want to be known as a 4-F so I would rather go in."

"The Japanese were out to get the medics. To them, the most hated men in our army were the medics and the BAR men, the Browning Automatic Riflemen. They would let anybody get by just to pick us off. They were taught to kill the medics for the reason it broke down the morale of the men, because if the medic was gone they had no one to take care of them. All the medics were armed, except me. There was no evidence but your aid kit to show that you were a medic. Even though I was unarmed, the men wanted to get close to me. I had to shoo them away. They said they felt safer with me. I made it a practice to go on patrol with the men. The non-com [a noncommissioned officer, such as a sergeant] warned me not to, but I told him, it may not be my duty but it was what I believed in. I knew these men; they were my buddies, some had wives and children. If they were hurt, I wanted to be there to take care of them. And when someone got hit, the others would close in around me while I treated him, then wed all go out together."

"There were one hundred and fifty-five went up and fifty-five got themselves down, so they wanted to say I lowered one hundred, but I refused. They wanted to know how many I took care of. I said, I dont know. I dont see how it could possibly be more than fifty. So theyre the ones who changed it from one hundred. I wanted fifty, and they made it seventy-five. I dont want to ever say I took care of seventy-five. All I want to say is I was just thankful that the Lord was able to use me, and forget the number. Its not the number: Its doing the best you can."

"Desmond Doss was Sergeant York without the rifle."

"Pfc. Desmond Doss is perhaps one of the most unlikely recipients of the Medal of Honor. Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, on Feb. 7, 1919, Doss was raised in a strict Seventh-day Adventist family. Entering the Army on April 1, 1942, Doss was classified 1AO, meaning conscientious objector (CO) available for noncombatant military service, as Seventh-day Adventists are prohibited from working on the Sabbath. The Army did not have a separate category for a noncombatant other than CO, so Doss became a medic with the 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division. Following basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, Doss’ company shipped to the Pacific in mid-1944. Doss’ support of his fellow soldiers on Guam and subsequently on the island of Leyte in the Philippines, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s initial landfall on the Philippine Islands, was exceptional, and he received a Bronze Star with V device. The 77th Division relieved the 96th Infantry Division on the island of Okinawa on April 28, 1945. It was on Okinawa that Doss encountered his rendezvous with destiny. Stretching across the island was a 400-foot cliff called the Maeda Escarpment. Doss’ company’s mission was to scale the ridge and eliminate the enemy on the reverse slope of the escarpment. The climb was exceedingly difficult, with the last 30–40 feet nearly vertical. On May 2, 1945, Doss reached the summit with 155 soldiers from Company B. At the top of the escarpment, Company B encountered heavy resistance. When the commander ordered his men to retreat on May 5, Doss refused to abandon his wounded comrades. Over the next five hours, Doss dragged wounded soldiers individually and lowered them over the ledge to the safety of their comrades below. All the time, he kept praying, “Lord, help me get one more.”"

"That skinny pharmacists mate from Georgia whos getting the Medal of Honor is the only CO I consider to be on the level."

"Even though I said those things to him in regard to carrying a rifle, then he would never be by my damn side at all unless he had a rifle. But then, in the long run, finding out that he was one of the bravest persons alive. And then to have him end up saving my life was the irony of the whole thing."

"And when I was eighteen, in nineteen thirty-seven, I registered, like anyone else, with my draft board in Lynchburg, Virginia. I believed in serving God and country. I took medical training, and I did what I could in preparation for getting into the Medical Corps where I could serve God and country without going against the dictates of my conscience. My pastor, R.F. Woods, went with me. We were Seventh-Day Adventists. I wanted to be known as a noncombatant, but the Army had no such classification. I had to accept Conscientious Objector status or face a court-martial. It meant you were going in with religious scruples. Now, I did not want to be known as a CO because they were refusing to salute the flag or serve the country in any way, shape, or form, and they were having demonstrations. Congress signed into law that COs could not be forced to bear arms. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and George C. Marshall, chief of staff, signed it, showing their approval. Adventists would not volunteer but would wait to be drafted. Thats why I didnt go in until April first, nineteen forty-two. In addition to the Sixth Commandment, there was also the Fourth, to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Now, Saturday is the Sabbath to Adventists and they worship on that day and dont work. But, you know, Christ healed on the Sabbath. Its a type of work I could do seven days a week. Thats why I wanted to get into the Medical Corps."

"And this is another place where we sort of disagree. To sum up my award now, you say I saved a life because I lowered a man down a cliff? Thats like you say the operation was a success but the patient died before we could get him sewed up. Thats not saving. Of the men I took care of, a number didnt survive. Did you save any, Doss? You didnt save his life; you did the best you could. And that is the reason I dont like it said I saved so many lives, because it couldnt be. I just did the best I could."

"[About a framed poster depicting scenes for each of the Christian Ten Commandments] My dad bought it at an auction for seventy-five cents when they first started housekeeping, and so the pictures over a hundred years old. And when I looked at that picture, I came to the Sixth Commandment, Thou Shalt Not Kill. I wondered, how in the world could a brother do such a thing? It put a horror in my heart of just killin, and as a result I took it personally: Desmond, if you love Me, you wont kill. And He says every man is your brother."

"How many soldiers had Doss rescued? Division headquarters reported 155 men went up the escarpment, and only 55 returned from the hill on their own. Doss modestly stated that he saved 50 men. .Doss’ exploits were later featured in the 2016 feature film Hacksaw Ridge, directed by Mel Gibson. Doss repeated his heroics over the next two weeks before he was seriously wounded on May 21, 1945. Evacuated to the U.S., newly promoted Cpl. Doss received the Medal of Honor from President Harry Truman on Oct. 12, 1945. Doss died on March 23, 2006, and is buried in Chattanooga National Cemetery in Tennessee. Doss remains the first conscientious objector to receive the nation’s highest award for valor in combat. Two decades later, Thomas Bennett and Joseph La Pointe Jr., also combat medics and conscientious objectors, followed in Doss’ footsteps during the Vietnam War."