Weekday Devotion With Pastor Chris

One of the great heroes of the Second World War was a young man who never fired a shot.  Born February 7, 1919, Desmond Doss grew up in Lynchburg, VA.  He left school in the eighth grade to help support his family during the Great Depression, and then went on become a joiner at the Naval Shipyard in Newport News, VA.  When the United States entered the war, he could have requested a military deferment because his work was deemed essential, but he didn’t.  Instead, he enlisted, only he enlisted as a conscientious objector.

     Doss’ whole life was shaped by his faith.  Yes, he felt called to serve his country, but his commitment to God came first.  What that meant in practice was that while he wanted to support our country, he wasn’t willing to carry a weapon in order to do so.  He took to heart God’s command, “Thou shalt not kill.”  He thought he could serve both God and country by being a medic.  Not surprisingly, his refusal to carry a weapon did not sit well with his fellow soldiers. 

     The men in his company saw him as a liability.  They treated him with contempt, and one even threatened, "Doss, as soon as we get into combat, I'll make sure you won't come back alive." The officers weren’t any different.  They tried to intimidate and break him, at one point declaring him mentally unfit for military service.  They even tried to court martial him.  But Doss persevered.

     Then came combat, first in Guam and then on Leyte.  There his unit found the man they had labeled a coward risking his life again and again to save their own.  Doss was awarded two bronze stars for exceptional valor during those two battles, both of them with the “V” which meant “earned in combat”.

     In his book, Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley gives us a glimpse of what medics routinely did as he describes a moment in his father’s life (also a medic) during the Battle of Iwo Jima:

His telltale “Unit 3” bag slapping at his side, my father sprinted through thirty yards of saturating cross fire – mortars and machine guns – to the wounded boy’s side. As bullets whined and pinged around him, Doc found the Marine losing blood at a life-threatening rate… He tied a plasma bag to the kid’s rifle and jammed it bayonet-first into the ground.  He moved his own body between the boy and the sheets of gunfire.  Then, his upper body still erect and fully exposed, he administered first aid… then [after signaling the rest of the unit to stay where they were] my father stood up into the merciless firestorm and pulled the wounded Marine back across the thirty yards to safety by himself.  His attention did not flicker until the Marine was safely evacuated.

     After Guam and Leyte, Doss' 77th Division was sent to Okinawa.  It was there that his actions would lead to the Medal of Honor, our nation's highest military award.  The citation is extraordinary.  At point during the battle, his unit pulled back under heavy fire.  Doss however, stayed behind and one by one saved 75 men who had been wounded.  He dragged each one to the edge of a cliff and then lowered them on a rope-supported litter.  Another day he exposed himself to rifle and mortar fire, rescuing a wounded man 200 yards in front of their lines.  Two days later he crept through a shower of grenades to within eight yard of enemy forces in order to treat four men who had been cut down.  The day after that he saved two more men, each time under constant fire.  Then Doss himself was finally hit.  He was hit first by a grenade, then later by a sniper’s bullet that shattered his arm.  He was evacuated, and the war, for him, was finally over.

     Desmond Doss lived his faith.  He served God, served our country and served those around him with faith, compassion, integrity and love.  He embodied the best of who we are, and what we strive to be.  On this Memorial Day, may we remember and give thanks for so many who have given so much over the course of our nation’s history.  We owe them more than we could ever hope to repay.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:12-13)