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Alexander's
Column
The
Most Unlikely Hero — Desmond Doss
When
ordered to retreat, but one man refused. The account of his actions is coming to
a theater near you!
By
Mark Alexander · September 28, 2016 
"There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above
itself, in acts of bravery and heroism." —Alexander Hamilton
(1775)
In early November, many of us will be focused on the second Tuesday, Election
Day, and the implications the poll taken that day will have on the future of Liberty. Most
notable is the future composition of the Supreme Court, because the winner of
this presidential election will likely remake the High Court for the next
quarter-century.
But pause with me to read about an event that reflects infinitely more about
the essential spirit of America than the
contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
On November 4th, there will be a big-screen release starring Andrew Garfield
(Amazing Spider-Man) in the lead role. It is an action hero movie, but it will
not feature a Marvel Comics character.
"Hacksaw Ridge" is the
incredible story of Medal of Honor recipient Desmond
Doss, a screen adaptation by Mel Gibson based on a screenplay that had been
relegated to "development hell" for 15 years. The film's world premiere was
earlier this month at the esteemed Venice Film Festival, where it received a
10-minute standing ovation.
So why does a script sit for 15 years and then receive an overwhelming
reception by the industry's leading critics? Because its subject did not have a
self-promoting inclination in his body, and the word "hero" is so overused today
that its meaning is now a ubiquitous reference to virtually anyone in any
uniform.
But this story reaffirms the rightful definition of heroism.
I first met Desmond Doss in 1995 when he was 76 years old. He was a local man
whose name wasn't known to many, even in his small community. He and his wife,
Frances, were simple people who lived a simple life on a small farm a few miles
south of our family home in east Tennessee.
Desmond was humble and slightly built. He wore thick glasses and was
virtually deaf. But he and Frances were warm and welcoming people.
So quiet and unassuming were these two souls that one would never suspect
they had been more than five miles from their small homestead. But Desmond and
Frances both exhibited a deep and unrelenting resolve rooted in their Christian
faith, which became evident when in their presence.
Fifty years before we met, Desmond selflessly demonstrated that faithful
resolve in repeated acts of heroism unparalleled among Medal of Honor
recipients before or since.
Desmond was raised in a Christian tradition which taught that taking up arms
to do someone harm was forbidden. When World War II began, he declined a
religious exemption that would have allowed him to continue working in a
Virginia shipyard. Instead, he became an Army medic. But he told his superior
officers that his religious beliefs — his understanding of the Ten Commandments
— prohibited him from picking up a weapon to kill someone.
I note that another Medal of Honor recipient, Tennessean Alvin York, held
similar faith views. He was a Christian "pacifist." However, in the 1918 battle
of Meuse-Argonne, York took up his weapon and masterfully used his backwoods
marksmanship to defend men who were pinned down by machine gun fire — and
captured 132 Germans in the process. Alvin would later say, "A higher power than
man guided and watched over me and told me what to do."
Desmond was classified a "conscientious objector," though he preferred the
term "conscientious cooperator" because he never objected to serving our
country. According to Desmond: "I felt like it was an honor to serve God and
country. I didn't want to be known as a draft dodger, but I sure didn't know
what I was getting into."
Doss was viewed by officers and his fellow enlisted personnel as a coward. He
never picked up a rifle, though he found himself in the heat of combat in places
like Leyte and Guam in the Pacific. But it was his actions in May 1945, near
Urasoe on Okinawa, that really distinguish his limitless courage and
character.
Amid the most horrific fighting on that bloody island, Desmond refused an
order of retreat and cover, because he knew there were many severely wounded
soldiers above his position at the top of the Maeda Escarpment — a rocky cliff
also known as Hacksaw Ridge. He scaled that high wall and, over the course of 12
hours, repeatedly crossed fields of Japanese machine gun, rifle and mortar fire
and, one-by-one, pulled injured soldiers off the battlefield and lowered them 35
feet to safety via an improvised rope litter. When he finally came back down the
escarpment, his fatigues were caked with blood.
His Medal of Honor citation reads
like fiction. What he did simply doesn't seem possible. But Desmond's heroic
actions with the Medical Detachment, 307th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division,
between April 29 and May 21, 1945, are well documented:
"He was a company aid man when the 1st Battalion assaulted a jagged
escarpment 400 feet high. As our troops gained the summit, a heavy concentration
of artillery, mortar and machine gun fire crashed into them, inflicting
approximately 75 casualties and driving the others back. Pfc. Doss refused to
seek cover and remained in the fire-swept area with the many stricken, carrying
all 75 casualties one-by-one to the edge of the escarpment and there lowering
them on a rope-supported litter down the face of a cliff to friendly
hands."
But his unprecedented heroics did not end there.
"On May 2, he exposed himself to heavy rifle and mortar fire in rescuing a
wounded man 200 yards forward of the lines on the same escarpment; and 2 days
later he treated 4 men who had been cut down while assaulting a strongly
defended cave, advancing through a shower of grenades to within eight yards of
enemy forces in a cave's mouth, where he dressed his comrades' wounds before
making 4 separate trips under fire to evacuate them to safety.
"On May 5, he unhesitatingly braved enemy shelling and small arms fire to
assist an artillery officer. He applied bandages, moved his patient to a spot
that offered protection from small arms fire and, while artillery and mortar
shells fell close by, painstakingly administered plasma. Later that day, when an
American was severely wounded by fire from a cave, Pfc. Doss crawled to him
where he had fallen 25 feet from the enemy position, rendered aid, and carried
him 100 yards to safety while continually exposed to enemy fire.
"On May 21, in a night attack on high ground near Shuri, he remained in
exposed territory while the rest of his company took cover, fearlessly risking
the chance that he would be mistaken for an infiltrating Japanese and giving aid
to the injured until he was himself seriously wounded in the legs by the
explosion of a grenade. Rather than call another aid man from cover, he cared
for his own injuries and waited 5 hours before litter bearers reached him and
started carrying him to cover. The trio was caught in an enemy tank attack and
Pfc. Doss, seeing a more critically wounded man nearby, crawled off the litter;
and directed the bearers to give their first attention to the other man.
"Awaiting the litter bearers' return, he was again struck, by a sniper bullet
while being carried off the field by a comrade, this time suffering a compound
fracture of one arm. With magnificent fortitude he bound a rifle stock to his
shattered arm as a splint and then crawled 300 yards over rough terrain to the
aid station.
"Through his outstanding bravery and unflinching determination in the face of
desperately dangerous conditions Pfc. Doss saved the lives of many soldiers. His
name became a symbol throughout the 77th Infantry Division for outstanding
gallantry far above and beyond the call of duty."
In awarding Desmond his medal, President Harry Truman referred to him as "the
little skinny pharmacist's mate." Indeed, at slightly over 140 pounds, he would
have qualified as a welterweight fighter, but he performed feats that, by his
account, could only have been achieved by God's intervening hand.
For his part, Desmond said, "I wasn't trying to be a hero, I was thinking
about it from this standpoint — in a house on fire and a mother has a child in
that house, what prompts her to go in and get that child? Love. I loved my men,
and ... I just couldn't give them up."
Years later, I heard a captain in Desmond's unit, one who had relentlessly
ridiculed him, recount in tears Doss's actions on Okinawa — tears because he was
one of the men Desmond pulled to safety.
Charles Googe, Director of the Medal of Honor Heritage Center in Chattanooga
(where Desmond's original Medal of Honor is housed), notes why his actions are
unparalleled among Medal recipients: "Often times heroism is measured within a
single or split-second act. Desmond Doss performed repeated unimaginable feats
of bravery on Leyte and Okinawa. He left Okinawa with a severely fractured arm
and 17 pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body."
Googe notes further, "Once back in the States, he devoted much of his life in
service to his neighbors and community. Desmond's character was defined not by
one single event, but by repeated acts of honorable service to his country
throughout his life."
Desmond died in 2006, and indeed, all who knew him remember him for his
lifelong repeated acts of service.
In 1992, during one of Ronald Reagan's last public
addresses, he offered these words about honoring our legacy of Liberty: "My
fondest hope for each one of you is that you will love your country, not for her
power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism. May each of you have
the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute
works that will make the world a little better for your having been here. May
all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek
divine guidance, and never lose your natural, God-given optimism. And finally,
my fellow Americans, may every dawn be a great new beginning for America and
every evening bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill."
Those words sum up the life of Desmond Doss.
Hacksaw Ridge is a big screen production that will introduce Millennials to
the reality of genuine heroism and American Patriotism.
Pro Deo et Constitutione — Libertas aut Mors
Semper Vigilans Fortis
Paratus et
Fidelis
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