Posted on 03/26/2006 5:47:04 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o
Desmond T. Doss Sr., 87, an Army medic on Okinawa during World War II who saved more than 75 wounded soldiers at great personal peril and became the first conscientious objector to the receive the Medal of Honor, died March 23...Mr. Doss was one of only two conscientious objectors to receive the Medal of Honor.
...Mr. Doss grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, whose tenets forbid bearing arms. However, when he was called to the draft, the lanky native Virginian declined a religious exemption that would have allowed him to continue working in a shipyard.
He served in the Army with the designation of conscientious objector, but he detested that phrase. He preferred "conscientious cooperator."
Still, he refused to learn to shoot a rifle.
"I felt like it was an honor to serve God and country," he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1998. ...
Sent to the Pacific, he saw combat on Leyte and Guam. His actions between April 29 and May 21, 1945, near Urasoe on Okinawa, were cited when he received the Medal of Honor, the military's highest award for valor.
At the time, he was in the medical detachment of the 77th Infantry Division. A battalion of his comrades was fired on by the Japanese as its members scaled a 400-foot escarpment.
Refusing cover, Mr. Doss carried each of the 75 casualties one-by-one to the edge of the cliff and helped lower them by rope to safety.
He continued similar rescue missions over the following days, also tending to the wounded by administering plasma as mortar fire struck around him.
During a nighttime attack May 21 near Shuri, he received injuries from a grenade blast. ... Seeing a soldier in worse condition nearby, he directed help to tend to that man first.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Ping.
While I don't agree with his pacifism, the man should be honored for the hero that he is. If only there were pacifists were like him...
They will be lost on them, however.
What's there to discuss? The man is a hero, and the model for people who have honest, heartfelt objections to fighting in a war.
I may disagree with his position on the justness of fighting in war, especially wars like World War 2, but that's his issue, not mine. The fact that he went as a medic and acted heroically makes him every bit a hero.
A hundred stories about veterans like Mr. Doss demonstrate that one can be a pacifist and a patriot. They seem a universe away from the anti-American marxists masquerading as pacifists that we tolerate today.
Exactly right.
If I am not mistaken, Sgt. Alvin York was the first conscientious objector to receive the CMOH during WWI.
Wasn't Sgt. York a conscientious objector as well?
Some were sent to Vietnam, where many lost their pacifict beliefs. For many of us who were influnced by the general anti-war culture, and had backgrounds in "peace churches" , it was a way to square the contradiction of conscience with the obligation to serve. I don't regret I took this path, though, with what I understand now, I wouldn't do it again.
The answer to that is both yes, and no. He originally applied for status as a concientious objector, but withdrew it after a solitidinous vigil, which he completed at his commanding officer's request. When he did the deeds that he did to recive the CMoH, he could not actually, unlike Mr. Doss be labeled a concientous objector at the time...
the infowarrior
Sergeant Alvin York belonged to the Church of Christ in Christian Union which espoud "moral injunctions against violence and war". Good bio here: http://www.alvincyork.org/AlvinCullomYork.htm
It is indeed. Thank you for your service. (and no I don't support how you chose to serve, but I do thank you)
That's what I thought.
My boss in RVN was a CO who was awarded a Silver Star for facing an enemy 51 cal to retrieve not one but three wounded stranded in the kill zone while the platoon remained pinned down...got his glasses shot off as a round creased his skull...no one else volunteered to go get the wounded and I doubt he would have let anyone else go..
Once the wounded were retrieved tac air was called in on the MG and they got naped...
He was a tough act to follow...
After Vietnam he took care of his father for a few yrs who finally succumbed to cancer...shortly after that his brother was murdered...
He got a degree in Physiology from the UofPenn got married had two daughters...but died tragically about 7 yrs ago..
Conscientious cooperators..."Conscientious Heros" in my book!
I was proud and lucky to serve with them...
Not to be confused with the cowards that call themselves conscientious objectors and then run away to Canada to avoid doing what soldiers do.
The second CO MOH winner was a medic in the Korean War who did similar brave rescues under fire.
I don't think any medic would have to by a drink if a combat veteran were in the room and knew about it.
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