Desmond T. Doss

The best advice I can give is put your heart and soul into your work. If you like what you're doing, the Lord will bless.

Desmond Thomas Doss (February 7, 1919 – March 23, 2006) was a United States Army corporal who served as a combat medic with an infantry company in the Battle of Okinawa during World War II and saved the lives of 75 men for which he became the only conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor during the war. His life has been the subject of books, the 2004 documentary and the 2016 Oscar nominated film Hacksaw Ridge, where he was portrayed by Andrew Garfield.

Quotes

I felt it an honor to serve my country, God and country, same as the rest of them. The only thing, I just didn't want to take life.

I was praying the whole time. I just kept praying, "Lord, please help me get one more." When I got this, I said, "Lord, please help me get one more."

I wanted fifty, and they made it seventy-five. I don't 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. It's not the number: It's doing the best you can.

• Blood had run down into the fella's face and eyes. He was laying there just groaning and calling for a medic. I took water from my canteen, got some bandage, and I washed his face. And when that blood was washed from his eyes, his eyes came open. Man, he just lit up. He says, "I thought I was blind." And if I hadn't got anything more out of the war than that smile he gave me, I'd have been well repaid.
  • The Conscientious Objector documentary (2004)

• I was praying the whole time. I just kept praying, "Lord, please help me get one more." When I got this, I said, "Lord, please help me get one more."
  • The Conscientious Objector documentary (2004)

1980s

Interview with AMEDD Center of History & Heritage (1987)

Interview (20 March 1987)

• 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 didn't want to be known as a 4-F so I would rather go in.

• I didn't believe in taking a life. I felt like God gave life, it wasn't for me to take. When I was growing up, I was the [unclear] child. My mother had a picture of the Ten Commandments illustrated and showed a picture of Cain, and Cain killed his brother Abel and I wondered how in the world could a brother do such a thing. That had some impression.

• I felt it an honor to serve my country, God and country, same as the rest of them. The only thing, I just didn't want to take life. I wanted to save life instead of taking life and for them to look at my records, which they did.

• I was conscientious and I like to call myself a conscientious cooperator instead of objector because we believe in serving our country in every way possible, same as anyone else. Only thing we didn't want to do is take life, like I mentioned before. God gave life, Christ is our example, I want to be him.

• I sincerely believe that all my men prayed with me before. At this same time cause there is no such thing as infidel when you're facing death. I know cause I've had some of the men come to me and ask, pray for me, even though they gave me a hard time in times past. When I finished praying, I went up, push up, I pushed over against these Japanese positions. Got pinned down, we couldn't move. While we were pinned down and couldn't move A company was over to our left and they was supposed to come over to help us, meet us to try and knock these Japanese positions.

• I had a, I prayed and I'm sure my wife, my mother and a lot others were praying for me. I was trying to take the safest precautions I could, but I felt like my life should be no more important than my buddies. My men reminded me of my family. There's something about combat that actually makes you more closely tied to each other. I think you are almost your own blood kin. Those men trusted me.

• The best advice I can give is put your heart and soul into your work. If you like what you're doing, the Lord will bless. I know some thought I was better. Well, I felt like I was. We put our heart and soul into our work. I feel like, especially for the medics, it's the most rewarding work there is. We can't save all but like I told you before about the experience, about the fellow that I took care of that I said I wouldn't give a plug penny for his life.

• So, I feel like my work has been rewarding work. I have no regrets. I'm just thankful I had the honor and privilege to serve God and country.

2000s

Beyond Glory (2003) interview

Note: Edited interview transcript featured in Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in their Own Words (2003) by Larry Smith, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, hardcover, pages 90-107.

• [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 picture's 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 won't kill.' And He says every man is your brother.
  • p. 91

• 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. That's why I didn't 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 don't work. But, you know, Christ healed on the Sabbath. It's a type of work I could do seven days a week. That's why I wanted to get into the Medical Corps.
  • p. 91-92

• 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 didn't feel like I was better than anyone else. I could serve my country for twenty-one dollars a month. That's 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.'
  • p. 92

• 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 we'd all go out together.
  • p. 95

• 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 don't know.' I don't see how it could possibly be more than fifty. So they're the ones who changed it from one hundred. I wanted fifty, and they made it seventy-five. I don't 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. It's not the number: It's doing the best you can.
  • p. 102

• 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? That's like you say the operation was a success but the patient died before we could get him sewed up. That's not saving. Of the men I took care of, a number didn't survive. Did you save any, Doss? You didn't save his life; you did the best you could. And thatis the reason I don't like it said I saved so many lives, because it couldn't be. I just did the best I could.
  • p. 102-103

Quotes about Desmond Doss

Desmond Doss was Sergeant York without the rifle. ~ Larry Smith

That skinny pharmacist's mate from Georgia who's getting the Medal of Honor is the only CO I consider to be on the level. ~ Harry Truman

• He was a company aidman 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 them 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. On 2 May, 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 two days later he treated four 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 four separate trips under fire to evacuate them to safety. On 5 May, 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 21 May, 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 aidman from cover, he cared for his own injuries and waited five 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, 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.
  • Citation for the Medal of Honor awarded to Doss, presented by President Harry Truman at the White House, Washington, D.C., on 12 October 1945[1]

• 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.
  • Capt. Jack Glover, The Conscientious Objector documentary (2004)

• He demonstrated that unconditional love, compassion, acceptance, and forgiveness, are possible even in the most adverse circumstances.
  • Desmond Doss Jr., "Desmond Doss Jr Interview – Hacksaw Ridge" (2017)

• 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.”
  • Colonel Cole C. Kingseed, U.S. Army, Retired, Medal of Honor Recipients Beat Prejudice, The Enemy, Association of the United States Army, 1 April 2022

• 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.
  • Colonel Cole C. Kingseed, U.S. Army, Retired, Medal of Honor Recipients Beat Prejudice, The Enemy, Association of the United States Army, 1 April 2022

• Desmond Doss was Sergeant York without the rifle.
  • Larry Smith, Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in their Own Words (2003), New York: W.W. Norton & Company, hardcover, p. 91

• That skinny pharmacist's mate from Georgia who's getting the Medal of Honor is the only CO I consider to be on the level.
  • Harry Truman, as quoted by Larry Smith, Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in their Own Words (2003), New York: W.W. Norton & Company, hardcover, p. 90