The Conscientious Objector (2004) Movie Script

1
(warzone shooting)
(dramatic instrumental music)
- [Voiceover] When I was
growing up, I looked for heroes.
And no other story inspired
me and captured my imagination
more than that of Private
Desmond T. Doss, the first
conscientious objector to ever
receive the Medal of Honor.
The more I tried to comprehend
his amazing actions, the
larger than life he became.
I never thought that 25 years
later as a filmmaker, I'd find
myself atop historic Lookout
Mountain, just outside of
Chattanooga, Tennessee, in a
little place called
Rising Fawn, Georgia.
I was here to meet the man
who had been my boyhood hero.
What I found was a simple
man living a simple life who
could only hear me through the
aid of his cochlear implant.
And though at times his words
were hard to understand, the
character of the man
spoke loud and clear.
- Okay.
- [Voiceover] I hear you.
- Okay, I'm hearing you now.
- [Voiceover] Okay.
Born in Lynchburg,
Virginia on February 7th,
1919 to Tom and Bertha Doss,
Desmond grew up as the middle
child in a typical
Depression-era family.
Filled with curiosity,
little Desmond
found fascination
with simple things.
- My mother had a picture in
the living room, a real large
picture of the Ten Commandments.
He, he was too small to get
up he wanted to touch it.
He would get up in a chair
and he was reading them
and he couldn't understand
why did Cain kill Abel?
The Bible says, "Thou
shalt not kill."
- And as a result, I didn't
want to ever take life.
- [Voiceover] These simple
images would stay with Desmond
for the rest of his life and
help define his character.
On a typical day, Desmond could
be found playing under the
train trestle or flattening
pennies on the railroad tracks
that ran behind his backyard.
His best friend was
his brother, Harold.
- I went to give him a hip
toss, and the grass was wet and
I slipped and I landed
right on his head.
And I, it hurt my hip,
as a matter of fact.
And I turned to him and I
said, "Now do you give up?"
And all he says, "uh-uh."
He couldn't even speak,
he just said, "Uh-huh."
And I said, that's it.
That was the last
time we ever wrestled,
because he was not one
that would give up.
He didn't know how.
- [Voiceover] The
Great Depression
took its toll on
Desmond's father.
He was often drunk
and despondent.
Fortunately, it was
his mother's love
and compassionate ways that had
the greatest impact
on Desmond's life.
- She let us be ourselves.
She was very spiritual,
and she brought
us all up being spiritual.
- [Voiceover] Bertha
Doss took her children
to a small Seventh-day
Adventist church, a church that
believed in keeping all
of the Ten Commandments.
She lived her life
by these principles,
and young Desmond
followed her example.
- He was always
helpful to people.
- Anyone sick, he
had to be there.
It was announced on the
radio-we didn't have TVs in them
days-it was announced that
there was an accident on Route
29, and they needed some blood
right away, to save
this woman's life.
He walked three miles to
the hospital and walked
three more miles back
home after giving blood.
Two days later, a call
came back over the radio
that they need more blood.
There he goes again,
walks the three miles,
then walks three miles back.
- [Voiceover] A defining
moment came to young
Desmond one hot summer evening
near his home in
Lynchburg, Virginia.
- It was an experience
I'll never forget.
What happened, my
uncle and my dad
were both drinking;
in fact, I'm afraid more
than that, they were drunk.
And they got into a fight.
- [Voiceover]
Insults were thrown
and challenges made until,
in the heat of the moment,
Desmond's father
pulled out a gun.
- They were fighting, and Daddy
had the gun, and
Mother got in between.
Neither one of them
wanted to hit Mother
and so Mother told Dad,
"You give me that gun."
She said, "The police
are on the way",
and you're going to
be in real trouble,
"they catch you with that gun."
He took the bullets out
and gave her the gun.
Mother gave me that gun, she
said, "Go hide that gun!"
I ran home, it was about
a block or two away.
- [Voiceover] With
the .45 pistol hidden
in a safe place,
Desmond ran back
just in time to see the
police arresting his father.
- I watched them shove my
daddy into the back of that old
black wagon with the drunks,
and then they drove off.
And I'll never forget that
experience because if it hadn't
been for Mother, my daddy would
most likely have killed him.
- [Voiceover] Though Desmond
can smile about it now, the
incident of his father almost
killing his own brother-in-law
brought the Cain and Abel
story too close to home, and he
vowed that that would
be the last time
he ever touched a gun.
- I ask that the Congress declare
that since the unprovoked
and dastardly attack by Japan
on Sunday, December 7th, 1941
a state of war has
existed between
the United States and
the Japanese Empire.
We will gain the inevitable
triumph, so help us God.
(Congress cheers)
- [Voiceover] At the time,
Desmond worked at the Newport
News naval shipyard, which
made him eligible for a
deferment, but when
his boss offered
him one, he wouldn't hear of it.
Instead, when Uncle Sam
called he was ready.
- I felt like it was an honor
to serve God and country.
We were fighting for our
religious liberty and freedom.
- He knew he was going
to have difficulty,
because he doesn't uh use a gun.
- In World War Two, it was
a total commitment among
Americans to serve, go to
the draft, volunteer for the
draft, to do your duty.
And one gentleman said that
three men in his hometown
committed suicide because
they were not physically
able to serve.
Now, think about that
for a moment here.
Because they were
physically inadequate,
they were 4-F or whatever the
code was, they couldn't serve?
So they committed suicide?
I mean, so here you have a person
who steps up and says, I'm
a conscientious
objector, I won't carry
a weapon because of
my religious beliefs.
Can you imagine?
- He was not going to use a gun.
I, I'm going in as a medic.
I'll do that.
- And when I told the sergeant
I was supposed to be
in the medics, ha!
We tell you where you belong,
you don't tell us nothin'.
And I found out he meant it.
- [Voiceover] The army told
Desmond that since he would not
carry a gun, they would
send him to a conscientious
objector's camp.
There, he would work with
men who refused to wear the
uniform or salute the flag.
- I tried to explain that I was
not that type of
conscientious objector.
I tried to explain that I was
a conscientious co-operator.
- I would say anyone is wrong
to try to compromise
somebody's conviction;
I don't care whether
it's army or what it is.
When you're under conviction
that is not a joke.
That's what you are.
- I did believe in saluting
my country's flag, wearing my
country's uniform and serving my
country the same as anyone else.
- [Voiceover] At
Desmond's insistence,
the military decided
that he could serve
in the regular army, but
with a classification
he did not want;
1A-0 Conscientious Objector.
So Desmond headed off to South
Carolina to join the 77th
Division and begin his basic
training at Fort Jackson.
I asked Desmond to go with me,
back to where it all began.
- I'm looking forward to
getting back to the base and see
some of the old
barracks and things
that I understand
are still standing.
I didn't like my classification
and I objected at the draft
board, and then it was
explained to me this way,
it meant that I was
going into the service
under conditions that I would
not be forced to bear arms.
- [Voiceover] Here at Fort
Jackson, Desmond looked forward
to becoming a combat medic,
but the army had other plans.
A postcard from
Desmond to his fiancee,
Dorothy Schutte,
dated April 16, 1942.
- [Voiceover] Dear Dorothy,
they've taken me out of the
medical attachment, so
the next letter, let it be
Private Doss, Company C,
Three-O-Seventh Infantry,
77th Division, U.S. Army.
Please pray for
me, love, Desmond.
- [Voiceover] The army knew
that peer pressure was powerful
medicine, so they assigned
Desmond to a rifle company, the
perfect scenario
where a conscientious
objector was least
likely to be accepted.
It was in these very barracks
filled with future G. I. Joes
that Desmond discovered that his
beliefs would be
severely tested.
- He was regarded very
frankly as a pest.
As true as I can say, a pest.
And, uh, I said, well,
what do we need him for?
Let him get out of the army.
Throw him out.
- You know, he's soft-spoken,
and very, you know,
easy-going, you know.
But a lot of people thought this
guy was putting on
an act, you know.
What kind of religion you can't
do this, you can't
do that, ya know.
- [Voiceover] His tenacious
practice of the principles that
he held true not only alienated
Desmond from his fellow
soldiers, it made him a
target for their ridicule.
- You didn't want to
associate with him, you didn't
want to go to the
latrine with him,
you didn't want to eat with him,
you didn't want
him in your unit,
you didn't want to have
anything to do with him.
And he was immediately branded
with a scarlet
letter, so to speak.
- They don't like the idea
of always a guy with a Bible.
He always carried his Bible.
And he had a small one and
always carried it in his pocket.
And they were always seeing
him reading his Bible.
That just made him fierce.
- Some people don't
believe in religion,
so they figure, well, what the
hell is he doing, you know?
- I was just something
that, a joke.
And they made fun of me.
Who he think he is?
Holy Jesus? Uh, Holy Job?
- You know, he'd say his
prayers at night and everything,
and some guys, some
guys took their shoes
and threw shoes at him and
threw things at him and made,
made fun of him,
right out in the open.
And I don't think I could
have taken what that guy did.
I don't think I
could have taken it.
But he hung in there.
He hung in there regardless
of what they said
or what they did.
- [Voiceover] Why do you think
he was able to take that?
- Because, because of
his real strong beliefs.
That's the only way that I
could understand it that, you
know, he was a hundred percent.
He was a hundred percent in
his religion and his beliefs,
and he just disregarded
what they said.
I, I don't think I could have,
I don't think I could
have handled it.
But he did, and that's why
I give him a lot of credit.
- One fellow, he told
me, "I swear to God Doss",
you go into combat, I'm
going to shoot you."
- It's your buddies that
get you along in life, and
certainly in the military,
they help you survive.
- I don't think he really
have a friend, you know.
He didn't have friends.
Because he was too much
out of the mainstream, see.
- I have to, I have to give
him credit for having a lot of
intestinal fortitude to stand up
to that ridicule and
to that criticism.
- Now, I don't blame the men for
doing some of the
things they did.
It's just that I
was just someone
to let steam off on, and they
probably thought I was just
trying to get out
of the service.
They didn't know I, I
was offered a deferment.
- [Voiceover] The men of the
77th Division were required to
go through mountain
training exercises.
Part of this training included
learning to tie a
variety of knots.
One of the basic knots that
everyone had to learn was the
bowline, a knot with a
loop that wouldn't slip.
One day while practicing
the bowline knot,
Desmond was surprised
to find that by doubling
the rope it made two
loops instead of just one.
He had no way of
knowing just how
important that little
discovery would become.
The one relationship Desmond
could count on was
with Dorothy Schutte.
Their letters had
become his lifeline,
and on August 17,
1942, they got married.
Desmond's troubles with the
army would follow him when the
77th Division moved to
Fort Pickett, Virginia.
Besides his conviction
not to take life,
Desmond followed
another principle
that he learned from
the picture on the wall.
The 4th commandment told him
to keep the Sabbath day holy.
For Desmond, that
meant not working
from sundown Friday
to sundown Saturday.
- The Lord says,
"Remember the seventh day,"
to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labor
and do all thy work,
but the seventh day is the
Sabbath of the Lord thy God.
"In it thou shalt
not do any work."
And I took that
personal to mean me.
- He would come
to the dispensary
for his pass Friday evening.
Major, I want my pass.
So he'd go off to some little
village or town or someplace
or find a little church,
and spend his time,
and then he'd come
back the next day,
and on Sunday he was given
all the rough details,
because they said, you
were off yesterday,
you get the tough details today.
- [Voiceover] Desmond never
complained about his tough
duties, and after a month
of being in the infantry,
he got some welcome
news. May 5, 1942:
- [Voiceover] Dear
Dorothy, I am back
in the medical attachment,
so when you write, be
sure you don't write to C,
for I am not there anymore.
- [Voiceover] Even though his
new commanding officer was
Jewish and believed in the
same Sabbath as Desmond,
Captain Statman found
Desmond's weekly
request for Saturday off a
source of constant annoyance.
- If you're Jewish
and very religious,
you might not want
to do certain things
on Friday night or
all day Saturday.
Our religion permits us to
carry out our duties whatever
they are as necessary.
- [Voiceover] Desmond
held his ground
and kept his Sabbath
faithfully every week.
But tensions continued
until finally,
Captain Statman had had enough.
- He says, "Doss, I am not
signing any more passes"
for you or let anyone else
"sign a pass for
you, is it clear?"
- [Voiceover] A letter
home, April 12, 1943:
- [Voiceover] Dear
Dorothy, I talked
to Captain Statman about not
being there Sabbath, and
he was still red hot.
He said that he would court-martial
me if I gave him any
more trouble, that I wasn't
any better than any of the
others and that I wasn't
going to have Saturdays off.
He also said that I
wasn't any good to him,
and he was going to get rid
of me the first chance he got.
- [Voiceover] Desmond's
conviction outweighed Captain
Statman's intimidation and
even under the threat of
court-martial, Desmond continued
to ask for his weekly pass.
In the summer of 1943, the
77th Division moved to Camp
Hyder, Arizona for
desert training.
- Those things are still there.
- [Voiceover] Two of Desmond's
fellow soldiers, Jim Boylan
and Jack Glover, joined
us at the abandoned site.
- Well, well, well.
- I think that's the worst,
the worst place that we ever
could be sent to on
the face of this earth.
We was the first,
first infantry outfit
I think, to take
maneuvers out there.
And what the hell they tried
to prove, I don't know.
- Uh, it was miserable during
the day when, when it was a
hundred and twenty-eight
in the shade and no shade.
- They thought we were going
on hikes in the daytime in a
hundred-degree-plus, with
one canteen of water.
- So here you are out on the
desert where the temperature
is a hundred and ten, you're
sweating out a gallon, how
could you possibly get along
on one canteen of water?
We lost people-people
died from dehydration.
- [Voiceover] Desmond wrote home
concerned about the wellbeing
of his men. July 9, 1943:
- [Voiceover] This
morning, I went
to the company commander and
told him that all the water
cans were full, and the men
wanted water, and the kitchen
wanted the cans back by
nine-thirty so they
could have them refilled.
Did he get hot!
He asked me if I was trying
to tell him how to run things.
He told me that he was
running the company
and I could take
care of the blisters.
If I had any complaints, to
go to the battalion commander,
so I went to Captain Benz
and told him what took place.
- [Voiceover] The
men got their water,
but Desmond took the heat
from the company commander.
The conditions at Camp Hyder
were so bad that
desertions were common.
Some men ran off into the
desert, never to be seen again.
But no matter how severe
the conditions got,
Desmond always put his men
first, sharing his ration of
water, treating their
raw and blistered feet,
and caring for those with
dehydration or sun stroke.
- They found out I put
my heart in my work,
and I wanted to help
all of them I could.
- [Voiceover] However, in
spite of Desmond's willing
service, his officers still
considered him their weakest
link, and they were determined
to find a way to do
something about it.
Commander Jack
Glover didn't just
want Desmond out of the company.
He wanted him out of the army.
- I said, well, we're going
into a war, and it's kill or be
killed, and everyone
has to have a damn gun,
because it's, it's
that type of thing,
and that's the only
way we're going
to win a war is to kill all of
them so, before they kill us.
And, uh, he said, Lieutenant,
don't ever doubt my courage,
because I will be
right by your side
saving life while you take life.
And I told him,
"You're not going to be by my
damn side if you
don't carry a gun."
- All the rest of the medics
were armed with side arms,
45-automatics, and I felt
that he should do likewise.
So I went to my battalion
commander, Colonel Gerald Cooney,
and I suggested
that, in my opinion,
Doss should be transferred.
- I don't question Glover's
sincerity either at that time.
I think he was very sincere
in his feeling that the whole
company would be better off
if Desmond wasn't with us.
- I wanted to stay with my men.
- Colonel Cooney said that
he felt that he had no reason
for transferring him
out of the company,
that it would have to
come from someone else.
I wanted to go further with it
and have him transferred and
he gave me the, the go-ahead to
contact regiment, which I did.
They said that they
could not do it,
they did not have
the power to do it,
and I proceeded
to go to division,
and my understanding was that
they went to General Randall,
who was assistant
division commander
and he gave them
the word that not
only was he going
to stay in the army,
but he was going
to stay with me.
- [Voiceover] October 19, 1943:
- [Voiceover]
Colonel Hamilton sent
for me to talk to me, and he
tried to shame me
into taking a gun.
He talked about Stonewall
Jackson, and Lee, and a few other
great warriors, and told what
great men they were, and they
were great Christian men.
He put it that I was letting
others do my fighting
for my religious rights.
I told him there were other
important jobs to be done other
than having to take life,
and I was willing to go to
the front lines to save
life, but not to take life.
- [Voiceover] Colonel
Hamilton's failure to convince
Desmond to bear arms only
heightened the army's frustration,
and Desmond's
officers grew openly
less tolerant of his behavior.
His refusal to carry a
gun or work on Saturday,
was a regular source
of irritation.
And finally they had had enough.
So they convened a meeting to
discharge Desmond on a Section
8, for mental instability.
- Desmond was called to answer
a charge that he would be of
no physical military use to the
1st Battalion because he was
a conscientious objector.
- Sergeant Howell from the
aid station came to my tent.
"Doss, turn in your aid kits.
You are no longer
in the medics."
Man, you could have knocked me
to the floor, I
couldn't believe it.
- But Cooney was pressured
into at least holding this
hearing, or meeting,
whatever they would call it.
And Cooney explained to
him what was going on,
that somebody had complained,
people had complained, they
didn't want him, this
and that, this and that.
- I told them, for them to
check the company records.
He says, "Oh, we have no
comeback on your work."
You're just too strict
on your religion,
"we want to just give you the
rest of your Sabbaths off."
- So why somebody did this, I
don't know, unless they of a
mind to say, well, I don't
want to be in a foxhole with a
guy who doesn't have a
grenade or a gun or something.
Because he had done nothing,
that would cause them to
initiate a charge of this type.
- I told him, "Sir,
I cannot accept"
no Section 8 off my religion.
To me I feel I would be a very
poor Christian to accept a
"Section 8 off my religion."
- You know, if somebody brought
you up on something like
that, you'd be inclined,
the ordinary guy,
I think, would be
inclined to be nasty.
Who said that?
Why do they say that?
So he wasn't like that.
I remember Desmond,
and that's what
struck me so much
with him at that time.
He said that he would be as
good a soldier as you
are, Colonel, he said.
"I'll be just as good as you."
And of course,
history shows that
he was not only
good, but better.
- [Voiceover] Finally, Colonel
Cooney and his officers
decided that Washington would
never approve a Section 8
discharge purely on
religious grounds.
Desmond had prevailed for now.
In October of 1943,
the 77th Division moved
to Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania.
It was here that this man
Captain William T. Cunningham,
took the controversy
with Desmond's
refusal to bear arms
one step further.
Jack Glover, Jim Boylan, and
Ken Lafond remember
the incident.
- Wake up alive in the
morning and you made your day.
When I met Jim at the
reunion in 90 in D.C.,
he told me that Cunningham died,
and we had a big drink over him.
- I was always wishing, I was
always hoping to see him in
the reunion, was I going
to give it to him after he
humiliated Doss right in front
of me when we were waiting
for a pass at Indiantown Gap.
An order came down that week
that everybody, everybody,
including clerks, truck drivers,
cooks, and everybody had to
qualify with a rifle on the
rifle range before they could
get a pass to go
into town overnight.
So I went over that
night to get my
pass the C.Q., they call
it, Charge of Quarters.
And, uh, Captain
Cunningham was the
one that had all
the passes there.
Desmond Doss just
happened to be in
front of me, right
in front of me.
So he got up there to get his
pass, Cunningham looks over.
"You, you didn't
qualify with a rifle.
You can't get a
pass to go in town."
He says, "Captain," he said,
"I don't have to touch a rifle."
He said, "It's in, on my record."
I do not touch any
weapons whatsoever."
He said, "You mean to tell me,
if you're in the house and a"
guy came in with a gun and your
mother was sitting there, he
says, 'I'm going to
shoot your mother, '
and you had a gun nearby, you
could have got and killed him,
you mean to tell me you wouldn't
have grabbed that
gun and killed him?
- I said, "I wouldn't
have no gun."
"You wouldn't have a gun?
You mean you wouldn't use it?"
I said, "I wouldn't have a gun."
"You mean you
wouldn't do nothin'?"
I said, "Now, that's a
horse of a different color."
I didn't mean I
wouldn't do anything.
Only thing about it, when
I got through with him he'd
probably wish he was dead.
"But as far as killing
anybody, I won't kill nobody."
- "What, well what do
you mean?" he says.
And he went into a
tantrum about that.
- Man, he was strictly business.
He had that carbine rifle,
and he gave me a direct order.
"You take this gun, or
you'll be court-martialed."
I didn't take it.
He grabbed it.
- Everybody was getting restless,
you know, guys standing
on one leg and then the other,
looking around, rolling their
eyes and everything
else ya know.
- He says, "Doss,
I don't want to"
have to court-martial you.
"I'm going to give
you one more chance."
He held it up again, he dropped
it, and I, I didn't grab it.
He grabbed it.
He says, "Doss, I am
now court-martialing"
you for refusing
a direct order."
- Another officer in our
company happened to come in, and
he stood there for a second
and he saw what was going on.
He said, "It's right there
on his record, Cunningham."
He said, "It's right
there in black and white."
He doesn't touch a rifle."
He said, "You don't have
to, give him his pass!"
He said, "He don't have anything"
to do about touching a rifle."
"Well, I can't understand
that," he said.
But he lost that argument.
- [Voiceover] But Cunningham
was not finished with him yet.
He placed Doss on permanent
K-P duty, scrubbing pots and
pans until his hands
were raw pieces of meat,
and he would not give him any
passes to visit his new wife.
But Doss's greatest
disappointment
came when he got a
letter from home.
- My brother that I hadn't
seen for a year or two was going
into the navy, and if I wanted
to see him I better come home.
- [Voiceover] Desmond was
long overdue for a two-week
furlough, so he went to
Captain Cunningham
to get his papers.
They were all signed and ready.
Cunningham was the
only thing standing
between Desmond and home.
- He looked at me, he says,
"Doss, you haven't
qualified with your weapon."
And he just tore that
paper right in the half.
But there was
nothing I could do.
- [Voiceover] With his furlough
papers torn up, Desmond's
hopes of seeing his
brother were gone.
Of all the hardships
and disappointments
he had been through the last
two years, this
was the toughest.
- That's why I called home.
I couldn't hardly talk into the
telephone, I was so
shook up and crying.
- That poor man.
I couldn't have taken it.
I couldn't have taken it if
they'd court-martialed me.
I'd have told him to
go to hell right there.
I mean it.
- [Voiceover]
Heartbroken, Desmond had
a hard time sleeping that night.
All he wanted to be
was a combat medic.
But the next morning,
to Desmond's surprise,
he found Statman
waiting to welcome
him back into the medical corps.
Desmond's father
had made one call
to the War Service Commission.
His regimental commander,
Colonel Steven S. Hamilton,
was reminded of the
presidential order
signed by President
Roosevelt affirming
that conscientious objectors
would not have to bear arms.
Not even an army officer had
the right to go contrary
to this act of Congress.
- There weren't
many, I don't think,
that would have understood
that he just had enough
inculcation of his
religion to say,
I'm not going to do this.
I don't know what it costs me,
but I'm not going to have a
grenade or a pistol or a rifle,
even though, as was pointed
out, other medics did.
- I knew if I ever
once compromised,
I was going to be in trouble.
Because if you can
compromise once,
you can compromise again.
- [Voiceover] The standoff
with Captain Cunningham marked
the end of two years of
fighting with the U.S. Army.
Desmond's next battle would
be with the Japanese army.
During the second
week of March 1944,
the 77th, the Statue of
Liberty Division,
headed west to ship out.
Desmond and Dorothy
said their goodbyes.
- When the train pulled
out, I waved goodbye to her,
and I tell you, it leaves you
in a very low feeling knowing
you may have seen your
wife for the last time.
I tell you, I could hardly
keep from crying, both of us
trying not to cry, because we
wanted to be brave to
encourage each other.
But the tears came nevertheless
as the train pulled out.
- [Voiceover] On the train,
Desmond was doing his usual K-P
duty when he realized that
they were going to pass his own
backyard in Lynchburg, Virginia.
He knew his dad loved to
watch the trains go by,
so he quickly scribbled a note.
- [Voiceover] Dear
Mother and Dad, I think
we are coming by the
home so I will write
you a few lines.
I'm holding up good so far,
and the Lord answered our
prayers, for I know I could not
stand it, giving up so much.
Dot and I left each other with
a smile as we wanted to see
the smile last, and it
didn't make it so hard on me.
The handkerchief that waved Dot
the last goodbye may
wave to you the same.
I hope to tie it around
this and wave it as I go by.
I'll need your prayers
more than ever,
but don't worry about
me as I will be okay.
- [Voiceover] Sure
enough, Dad was watching
the train pass by.
Desmond quickly tied the note
to a brick and tossed it for
all he was worth,
yelling and waving
and hoping to get his
father's attention.
But their eyes never met.
As they crossed the
old train trestle,
Desmond watched his father
disappear in the distance.
- I hit an all-time low.
I knew now that I had seen my
loved ones for the last time,
and I just felt like I'd like
to jump off the baggage car.
I had a feeling, it felt like
I might never come back, so
why go, but I knew I had to
get that stuff out of my mind.
So I got busy with K-P.
After that, well, things went
about as well as
you could expect.
- [Voiceover] The
island of Guam.
Desmond and the men
of the 77th Division get
their first taste of war.
(war zone shooting)
- You dig that hole, you get
in it, and you stay there.
You don't get out.
- A guy laying
right beside of me,
a bullet came in right
through his skull.
- If you had to go to the
bathroom, you use your, use your
steel helmet and put it on
the side of the hole 'til the
next mornin, and
wash it out the best
you could, and put
it back on again.
- Laying in your
foxhole at night,
and listening to the
artillery coming in.
All night long you hear the
whistle, you know, and then the
mortars too dropped in on us.
- Your mind is, it's like a
haze, because you're taking
orders, you don't know why
you're taking them, you just do,
because that's your
job, that's your duty.
- Them boys fired them machine
guns and things 'til the
barrels was turnin red.
- And it was scary,
really scary.
- At night, that's when Desmond
done a lot of his
work was at night.
He'd go out, crawl around
amongst our boys and see if they
wasn't dead, he's take care
of em and drag em back.
- [Voiceover] He wasn't
supposed to do that.
- He wasn't supposed
to move at night.
He said, "Them guys
that's wounded out there",
I got to go see about em.
"That's my job."
- One time there was a guy
pinned down and he, he got to
the guy, they were
shooting at him too.
But I saw him get in
there, but I never
saw him comin out, you know.
- I don't know how he kept
from getting shot by the enemy.
Cause someway he got,
he'd creep around
on the ground and
get by with it.
- The captain told him, he
says, you know, there's a lot of
people, you might, your own
men might shoot you, you know.
But he disregarded that, and
he just went around, anybody
that needed help, he'd help 'em.
- [Voiceover] Desmond talks
about one particular soldier he
would never forget.
- Blood had run down into
the fellow's face and eyes.
He was laying there just groaning
and calling for a medic.
I took water from
my canteen, got some
bandages, and I washed his face.
And when that blood was
washed from his eyes,
his eyes came open, and
man, he just lit up.
He says "I thought I was blind."
And if I hadn't gotten anything
more out the war than that
smile he gave me, I'd
have been well repaid.
- [Voiceover] The next morning,
arriving at the bivouac
area, Desmond discovered that
the friend he had
just saved had died.
- So from then on, I took
care of the men, but I didn't
want to know which one of
my men I was taking care of,
because it was just
too hard on me.
- [Voiceover] Stories began
to circulate about Desmond's
willingness to help
anyone who was wounded.
- They said that he had treated
an enemy soldier while he
was out there looking
for ours, you know,
creeping around out there.
I don't know how
bad the man was hit,
but there was one found with
a bandage on his arm, an
American bandage, so that's
the reason I figured they was
right when they said he done it.
- [Voiceover] But as dedicated
as he was to saving all
human life, Desmond and his
fellow medics quickly learned
that they would get no special
treatment from the enemy.
- Medics was supposed to wear
a so-called brassard, a red
cross, on their arm, and
one painted on their helmet.
Our men quickly got rid of
those things, because it made
them an outstanding target.
I can remember sitting up on
a ridge and watching these
medics trying to evacuate a
wounded infantry person, and the
Japanese were after
them, they were trying
to kill the litter bearers.
- They preferred to get
us above anyone else.
They would let the infantry
get by just to pick off the
medic, because if they
killed the medics,
it broke down the
morale of the men.
- [Voiceover] The Japanese
army took their demoralizing
tactics to a level that
the men never expected.
An old man from one of the
villages told Desmond what the
Japanese had done to the Okinawan
people to instill abject
fear of the Americans.
- They would call the village
out, for all the women to
come, and then they would take
the most beautiful woman and
raped them in
front of everybody.
And said, "That's what the
American dogs will do for you."
- [Voiceover] Motivated
by fear, the villagers
learned how to kill.
- They had, they had a thing
they called the Bonsai attack.
They wanted to kill us while
we were in our
foxholes at night.
And they used these women
with sharpened bamboo
poles to kill us.
And we were rolling the grenades
down at the charging women,
and, we had to really kill them.
Babies, for God sake, women.
We did it.
I'm shakin.
- [Voiceover] The Japanese
knew that breaking down the
morale of the Americans
would give them a
tactical advantage.
Jack Glover told me about
when three Japanese soldiers
approached, two on a bike
and one running alongside.
They were waving a white flag.
- And they got about twenty
yards or so away from us, and
the two on the bike jumped
off and the one stopped,
and all of them had
grenades in their
hands or nearby or in
their pockets or whatever.
And they threw the grenades
at us and five of
my men were wounded.
After that time my orders
were, to my men, when you see a
white flag waved by
a Japanese soldier,
he will be dead and there
will never be another instance
where anyone with a white flag
gets that close to us
enabling them to wound us.
- [Voiceover] Regardless
of the Japanese brutality,
Desmond's desire to treat
anyone in need never changed.
- This Japanese was wounded.
He needed medical help.
I was going to give, I was
going to take care of him.
The fellows pulled a gun on me.
They used some strong language.
"Use any of that stuff on that
blankety-blank, we'll kill
"you," and I knew they meant it.
So I knew better than to try
to take care of any Japanese.
- [Voiceover] When it came to
courage on the battlefield,
the men of the 77th
Division developed
a hard-core reputation
for never backing down.
Even the infamous Japanese
radio broadcaster, Tokyo Rose,
called them the
Butchers of Guam.
But there was one man who was
the exception to the rule:
the man who had tried to
force Desmond to carry a gun.
- This guy Cunningham,
who turned around
and ran in the
face of the enemy.
Turned around and ran!
And everybody watched him.
- We were fighting the Japs,
and I looked around, and
Cunningham was running across
the field, away from us,
hightailing it across the field.
And I actually
drew a bead on him
and I was going to kill him.
- The truth of his behavior
all the way through, on
maneuvers and every place
else, showed up when he turned
around and ran in the
face of the enemy.
But Doss didn't do that.
He didn't do that ever.
- Then several stories that
came down as we gradually went
along, after combat after
combat, action after action.
There was always some story
in regard to Desmond T. Doss,
the medic, that, uh just
absolutely refuses to allow
wounded soldiers to,
to not be treated.
Refusing to withdraw
under any circumstances.
- When we went into Guam,
that's when they started
respecting him, because he'd
get, he'd go right on in there
without no weapon, and any man
that's willing to go in the
war without a
weapon is, uh, he's
goin to have to have faith.
- Okinawa, the hellhole
of the Pacific.
Okinawa to me was sleeping in
rain, cold weather, with mud
up to here, mud in your ears
and your nose and your mouth,
and your shoes,
and other places.
- [Voiceover] With Guam and
Layte behind them, Desmond and
his men would face
their greatest
challenge as the 77th Division
prepared to participate
in an invasion
bigger than D-day.
They would be thrown head first
into the bloodiest battle in
the Pacific theater,
code-named Operation Iceberg.
- And we could, we could see
the fleet out in the water,
all our ships, battleships and
all, destroyers and flattops.
And we could see these kamikazes
coming right in on
em and hittin em.
Boy, I'm telling you,
that's a bad feeling.
- [Voiceover] Ordered to
replace the decimated 96th
Division, the men of
the 77th anxiously
anticipated getting ashore.
But no enemy waited
to confront them.
Instead, they had to face their
own feelings of
fear and foreboding.
- [Voiceover] April
28, 1945, Dear Dorothy,
it won't be long
before I won't be
able to write you
letters like this.
Not that I don't love you as
much, but because I have to
keep my mind on my job so I
can come back to you in good
health and do my work the best
I know how with God's help.
- When I see these, uh, trucks
coming out with the, uh,
dead people, dead
American soldiers,
stacked on those
trucks like cordwood.
Many trucks not just one or
two, but all of these dead
comrades, friends,
buddies, coming back
from where I'm going to?
I had many misgivings
about this.
- We went up to pick up bodies
and stack them up
alongside the road.
So we'd, we'd pick them up, and
of course a lot of them were
bloated and missing parts.
And we had like one guy on one
end of the litter and one guy
on the other, and
the guy would drop
it because it was too heavy.
And the guy'd "Eh.. you stupid
old so-and-so.. you know."
And it was, we
were just oblivious
to the fact that these
used to be people.
It was like stacking
up cordwood.
We'd stack them
up along the way,
and then put some more this
way, as high as we could reach,
and so they could,
uh, the trucks
could come by and they
put them on a truck.
Take them back and I guess
try to identify them.
They were, it was just
like it was, I don't know,
they just weren't people.
- The mud was almost
halfway up to our knees.
And I was carrying this litter.
I, I was carrying this litter.
I was in the front of it, and
I noticed a guy in front of
me, he stepped in this mud
puddle, and when he pulled, when
he pulled his foot out, I, I
could see the coagulated blood
coming from his, coming from his
shoe into the water, you know?
And the water was all red,
and I'm saying to myself, good
God, I, I don't believe this.
And so help me, it was about
two hundred yards there that we
literally, literally,
walked through blood.
It was that bad.
It was that bad.
I, I, uh, dream
about that sometimes.
- [Voiceover] I had mixed
emotions about taking Desmond and
his friends back
to the escarpment.
I didn't want them to have to
think about what it was like.
Yet, on the other hand, I hoped
it would help them remember.
They had no trouble remembering.
- With my eyes open, I can
visualize that escarpment and
every damn piece on it with all
the bad memories
that I have about it.
- I want to go see
it, anxious to see it.
I think maybe I can put a
little more of it behind me.
- I couldn't sleep, I thought
about it a little bit.
What will my reaction be?
- 4/28 to 5/9.
Can thank God that
I am still alive.
On the 28th, went up to relieve
the ninety-sixth division,
which had been unable
to move for many days.
They were held up at a ridge
about three hundred feet high.
It was called the escarpment.
- [Voiceover] The morale of
Desmond's men would be tested
to the core as they faced
this imposing monolith.
- The Maeda Escarpment uh ran
almost across the island, the
southern part of the island.
It was a, a plateau that
was.. uh.. fortified by.. uh
reinforced pill boxes, caves,
steel and concrete
reinforced emplacements.
- They had a view of the
entire island from that point.
It was a, a sheer wall of about,
at least three hundred
and fifty feet.
They could not get past that.
There was nothing that
could get past that
because it was so well defended.
It was not hit and
advance, hit and advance.
It was a stagnant war.
It was a kill-or-be-killed
type of war, on the
spot, right there.
You didn't make
much of an advance.
- The Japanese had been
there for many years,
and they had cut
holes all in there.
- And this is where they had
their, their headquarters
like, where they had their
food, their ammunition, their
weapons and, uh,
medications, stuff like that.
- They were down in there,
and they could get out of
the way when we dropped our
grenades in there,
and shoot in there
and one thing and another.
They could get out of
the way and sit down
and just wait for us to leave.
- One time we had some Japs
cornered in a cave, and we had
an interpreter with us who told
them to come out with
their hands up, you know.
- And he hit it with
this flamethrower.
And right inside, shot
it right inside the cave.
And then we saw people coming
out of the cave on fire with
that, with that, and
there were women!
Not only the Jap soldiers,
the women that were with them.
They were on fire, running out
of the cave, rolling on the
ground, suffering,
screaming, howling.
Well, what the hell could
you do really you know?
That was pitiful.
- I don't like it.
I... I may joke about it,
but I very seriously,
I don't like being here.
I don't like it being
brought to my memory,
bringing it back to me.
Uh, I'd rather I hadn't
come, but as I said
before, I felt I had to.
- Ah, it's so peaceful
and quiet here.
You can't imagine.
You just can't imagine,
the difference.
Just about this time of
night, every night it started.
Cause they'd let us occupy the
top of the ridge most of the
day, and just about at sundown,
that's when they'd drive us off.
(children's laughter)
- [Voiceover] Standing here,
it is impossible for me to
imagine the carnage,
the killing field
that existed on this plateau.
Directly under this very spot,
four hundred Japanese soldiers
lie entombed in their cave
blown shut by Jack Glover and
his men... just one of many.
Nine times in seven days
the men were driven
off the escarpment.
The machine-gun fire
was so thick at times
that men would be cut in half.
Every night there wasn't one
inch of this parcel of rock
that hadn't been bombed,
mortared or shelled.
Eight company
commanders were lost
in less than thirty-six hours.
Platoons with thirty men would
come back with only five or six.
The whole invasion became
focused on the 77th's vicious
fight to take Hacksaw
Ridge and hold it.
- We were sent up in groups of
one, of two, of a squad, and
we were thrown off.
And the next group came up,
and they were thrown up.
And finally we worked our way
around from the east side,
and we came across this
little depression right here.
We had stones built up that
we picked up, and we built a
rock to keep the machine
guns from cross-firing,
because they had a cross-fire
across the top of this thing.
Anybody popped his
head up he was dead.
- This is a Japanese position.
And from here...
they had a clear
shot of all the
American movement.
- Not being able
to get to the top,
we called for cargo nets.
- The captain had called back
to the colonel, and he said,
"What you want, Frank?"
And he says, "I
want a cargo net."
- The same cargo nets that
we climbed down from the army
personnel carriers into the
landing craft as we went ashore.
- "Now, Frank, what in the hell
do you want with a cargo net?"
He said, "I'm getting, I'm
going to go over that ridge."
- [Voiceover] Someone had to
go up and hang the cargo nets.
Three men from B
Company volunteered.
Medic Desmond Doss
was one of them.
- We got some of
these two-by-fours,
spliced them together...
made a long ladder.
And the sergeant and I climbed
up and tied some cargo nets.
- I saw him up on this escarpment,
he and this other man,
and they stood straight
up on the escarpment
and they silhouetted
themselves up there,
as you're not supposed to do.
And at that time the
Japanese had been
firing at us with artillery
and so on and so forth.
But while he was
up there, there was
no Japanese fire
that I saw or heard.
- [Voiceover]
That's kind of odd.
- Yeah, it is.
- [Voiceover] This film shows
the first rifleman climbing
the wall of the escarpment.
Desmond stands on top, having
just secured the cargo nets.
This was the last photo
taken at the escarpment.
The photographers refused
to go any farther.
The fighting was too intense.
- Captain Vernon told some
guy, one of the infantrymen, to
go up on the-and see
what's going on up on top.
Well, he climbed up the ladder,
and as soon as he got up the
top, and got over the top,
you'd hear machine gun fire and
then it was quiet.
Didn't hear a thing.
So then he sent another guy up,
and he went up,
same thing happened.
- [Voiceover] A third
man was sent to the top,
and the results were the same.
Then Lee Willoughby
and Desmond Doss,
were approached by
Full Bird Colonel.
- When he came up past that
platoon command post, I was
reading my Bible,
and he asked me,
"How's things on top?"
I says, "I don't
know, the company"
command post is
sitting just below.
"You ought to check
before you go up."
But he came on up anyway.
- It wasn't a matter of a few
minutes and, uh, you could
hear machine gun fire, or
rifle fire, I can't remember.
You'd hear fire.
And Desmond took a
look over the top,
and there he was lying prone.
And Desmond went running up,
and he told me to come up.
And we got up next
to him, and he had
blood on his, on
the front of him.
You know, I don't know the extent
of his wounds to this day.
But he had blood on
him, and Desmond said,
"I don't have any plasma.
Go down and get some plasma."
So I had to go down... that whole
slope, down to where the aid
station was, was probably
a couple hundred yards.
And, uh, there's mortar shells
coming down all the time.
And all these guys
are all dug in.
And I'm running down
there to get this blood.
I wasn't too happy about it.
And when I got down there I
wished I could have stayed.
But I got the plasma and ran
back up again and gave it to
Desmond, and he
administered the plasma.
- [Voiceover] Because
of their great numbers,
defensive tactics,
and unfailing spirits,
the Japanese seemed invincible.
- We'd call for the artillery
fire to bomb them a while,
shoot them, and
they would, and then
we'd go back and try it again.
And we, most every day we'd
maybe get to the top of it, but
wouldn't stay long.
We'd come back.
That happened several
days in a row.
- [Voiceover] Do you recognize
these rocks in this area here?
- No trees, just rock
ground, like this.
- [Voiceover] Desmond told
me how the Japanese would
purposely let the Americans
take this segment on
top of the escarpment.
Then when there was a high
concentration of U.S. soldiers,
the Japanese opened
fire with everything
they had, killing
and wounding dozens
of Gis and driving the best
back over the ridge,
leaving behind the carnage.
On April 30, 1945, Companies
A and B were ordered to mount
an assault on the escarpment.
Preparing to go
up with B Company,
Desmond asked permission
to pray for his men.
Lieutenant Gornto
granted his request.
The attack was launched,
and A Company was decimated.
B Company, the company Desmond
prayed for, knocked out a
large pillbox and returned
without a scratch.
- Headquarters said that they,
they sent a note down, you
sure you got the right ridge?
Cause it was, like they
say, it was like a miracle.
Nobody got wounded or
anything... killed or wounded.
- [Voiceover] But on May 2,
1945, Desmond's request for
prayer could not be granted.
The assault was
already in progress.
The Japanese waited until
B Company reached the top,
and then started
a brutal barrage
of artillery, mortar,
grenade and rifle fire.
- Dat-dat-dat-dat,
boom, boom, it just,
the air was full of flak and
grenade fragments and bullets.
- When you hear this just,
phhhht, phhhht, like that, go by
your head, you know that, uh,
that a bullet come pretty
close to your head.
We used to make jokes about it,
don't worry, don't
worry about it,
as long as you can still
hear them go by your head
you don't have to
worry about it.
- [Voiceover] Atop
the escarpment,
cries for a medic were heard.
Ralph Baker found an unconscious
soldier with head and chest
wounds and both legs blown off.
- But how much
time would it take
to treat a guy with
both legs blown off?
After you maybe put a
tourniquet on his legs.
And uh then if his
legs were blown off,
it was bleeding
you know, terribly.
- [Voiceover] So Baker was faced
with the difficult decision:
try to save a man who
would probably die anyway,
or move on to help someone else.
- The guy was dying
and I just left him,
walked off and left him.
And, that's not callousness
or nothing like that.
There's one principle
you almost use, is,
treat the least
seriously wounded first.
- [Voiceover] But
Desmond Doss was guided
by a different principle.
- I had taken care of men
that was left for dead because
they were unconscious, and so
that's why I wanted to give
this man the benefit
of the doubt.
My goal, as long as there is
life, there's always hope.
- [Voiceover] Desmond treated
the wounded soldier and
dragged him back to safety.
The man survived and
lived to be seventy-two.
That night, Desmond and a
buddy were trying to get some
sleep near the bottom
of the escarpment,
when he heard
Japanese voices coming
from a hole just a
few feet below him.
Desmond grew concerned that
they would be discovered.
- Between me and my buddy
was these hand grenades.
All I had to do was
just pull the pin
and I knew I had some Japanese.
- [Voiceover] This is a photo
of the actual hole where the
Japanese were setting
up a machine gun.
Just above, Desmond was facing
the very crisis that his
commanding officers
had warned him about.
When forced to choose
between protecting
his men or standing by his
convictions, what would he do?
- And I thought of
what I'd heard before.
Thou shalt not kill.
God gave life, and I
didn't want to take life.
- [Voiceover] Desmond told
me that this was the greatest
temptation of his life.
In the end, he decided
that he could not kill,
even at the risk of death
to himself and his men.
Meanwhile, nearby in another
cave, Carl Bentley and his
buddy, Charlie Eggett, faced
their own moral dilemma.
- And we could see the Japanese
feet going back and forth,
just ten feet,
twenty feet from us.
And we were being real quiet.
And there was one guy in there
that was already wounded.
And he was beggin us
to take his boots off.
He said, "My feet hurt,
please take my boots off."
And, uh, one, one foot
didn't, he didn't have a foot.
It was gone.
It had blown off.
The other foot was
hanging by a tendon.
And, uh, we said, okay,
we'll take your boots off,
just be quiet, quit
moaning, because
the Japanese will hear you.
I haven't told this
a lot of places.
I don't know whether
to tell it now or not.
But we, uh, we knew this
guy couldn't make it.
He was so wounded up, shot up,
just all through riddled his
body, leaking out
everywhere, blood leaking out.
And we thought about going ahead
and putting him
out of his misery,
and putting us out of danger,
by killing him, uh
bayonetting him.
And Charlie said,
"You do it, I can't."
I said, "No, I can't, Charlie,
you'll have to do it."
He says, "I can't either."
But it actually
entered our minds,
and shouldn't we go ahead
and put an end to his life
and put an end to his
moaning and groaning
and putting us in danger.
We thought about it
but we couldn't do it.
I'm ashamed that we
thought about it.
- No, this ain't
war, this is hell.
- Rifles broke right in two,
canteens torn right in
two, and everything.
That's how bad it was.
- Mortars coming
down like grapes.
I mean, clusters.
- People started
shooting at each other.
We were shooting our own men.
- And the Japanese came in on
us, and they just came in in
such hordes, and
such, so many of them,
all so suddenly, that, uh,
they just knocked our boys down
and out, and, uh, killing them
right and left, and they
just swarmed over us.
- Our guys were getting shot
left and right, they were
getting wounded, shrapnel,
gunfire, grenades, mortars.
- An American guy up on the
ridge, he got bayonetted by a
Jap, his stomach fell out.
He was holding it, and he,
you know, he was so scared he
started backing up and he
went right over the cliff.
And it, when he was
yelling going down,
oh... never forgot that.
- [Voiceover] The
routed Americans
were called to a hasty retreat.
Some were shot or bayonetted
as they tried to climb
back down the cargo nets.
- For the third
time, we once again,
we were kicked off
of that escarpment.
And, uh, and we left,
uh, many men up on top,
injured men, wounded men,
up on top of the escarpment.
- [Voiceover] One of the wounded
was Private John Centola.
- The first time I got wounded,
you know, you don't know
what it's all about
until you get whacked.
Desmond Doss, you know, he was
working on me, and he says,
"Take it easy,
you'll be all right."
He says, and I couldn't
believe how calm he was.
And, uh, while he
was working me,
I asked him, I says, "You
don't have any weapons."
I says, "I'll give
you a forty-five."
He says, "No," he says,
"I can't kill anybody,"
you know, he says,
"That's my religion."
And I says to myself,
here's a warrior, you know?
- [Voiceover] Centola watched as
Desmond disappeared
into the mayhem.
Out of 155 of Company B,
55 retreated under
their own power.
The rest remained on top.
- The next thing I knew,
to my recollection,
was that there was
a man up on top,
aiding injured men and bringing
them back to the ledge.
- And they says,
"Yeah, there's some,"
some nut up there
that's getting his butt
"shot off, saving
the infantrymen."
- [Voiceover] That nut was about
to become their
most loved medic.
What Private Desmond T.
Doss did over the next
twelve hours was nothing
short of a miracle.
- Every time I'd
look, he was there.
He was letting these wounded
down to the other people down
below, the medics and
one thing and another,
and taking them on
down, back below,
where they could be taken away.
- He kept on dragging people
back to the ledge and, uh,
getting those people to
the ledge so that he could,
uh... lower those
people to the bottom
where they could be
treated properly.
- And he was
covered from head to
foot in blood, and
he was just a mess.
- I happened to be in a position
there where Doss was near
me, and someone told Doss
that there was a man out there
that was wounded
and needed help,
and he went out there
and got him period!
And the mortar fire and the
rifle fire was just heavy.
Real heavy.
And, uh, I looked
out of my foxhole
and shooting and peeking
over the edge and everything,
and Doss walked out there and
got him and brought him back.
- The bullets were flying
and shells going off.
You have to make yourself as
small a target as possible.
And so in order to get the men
over here, I just caught them
by the collar of the neck and
I got down close to the ground
and dragged for all I was worth.
- Then I felt like the Lord
impressed on my mind, that
bowline knot you tied
in West Virginia.
Hey, that double loop!
You know, I took that rope
and I had a double loop.
Then I put the leg
through each loop.
- [Voiceover] Using that
double-loop bowline knot he
discovered back in training,
Desmond quickly secured each
man and lowered him over
the seventy-foot cliff.
- They was hollering at him.
"Hey, Doss, get down from there.
You can't stay up
there. Get down."
And he just, like
he didn't hear them.
Like they weren't there.
One time he had one
man on each arm.
They were partially equipped
where they could partially help
themselves, and he was leading
them, one man under each arm,
holding with each
arm, and bringing them
over there to let them down.
I thought, this is amazing,
how can this guy do this?
- He doesn't weigh
over a hundred
and fifty pounds, I
don't think, you know.
Maybe a little more when
he was in the service.
But, not a very big man.
So it was just amazing.
- [Voiceover] The wounded
men lay scattered across the
rocky plateau, some as far away
as a hundred and twenty-five
yards from the cargo net.
Desmond dragged or carried each
man back to the edge of the
escarpment by himself.
- Time after time I saw Doss
go back into, into the enemy,
into the Japanese, and pick
up wounded, our wounded, and
bring them there and let them
down on these ropes and one
thing and another,
off the escarpment.
And the bullets were flying
like bees or something.
It's just, it was miraculous.
I couldn't understand
how he could do this.
- I was praying the whole time.
I just kept praying, "Lord,
please help me get one more."
When I got that, I said, "Lord",
please help me get one more."
- It's as if God had his hand
on his shoulder, is the only
thing, the only
explanation I can give.
- [Voiceover] Desmond worked
alone as the battle raged on
around him, ignoring
the constant danger.
Knowing that the Japanese would
torture a wounded soldier at
night, Desmond refused to
leave a single man on top.
- They, they were coming down
every so often, and some of
them were dead and some
of them were wounded.
You know, and sometimes you
didn't know which is which,
and some were crying, and... but
we tried to reassure them.
We'd say, "Hey, you're okay."
You know, "you'll be okay."
Maybe they weren't, but, uh,
at least give them a little
assurance that they were,
uh, they had a chance.
- [Voiceover] From this vantage
point, the Japanese had a
clear shot of Desmond as he
lowered the men to safety.
One Japanese soldier reported
that he had had Desmond in his
sites, but his gun jammed every
time he pulled the trigger.
In spite of all their
attempts to kill him,
Desmond was never hit.
During this chaotic
twelve-hour period,
Desmond let down
seventy-five men,
averaging one man
every ten minutes.
- Some of them were even still
in the litter while he
was lowering them down.
They were tied onto the litter,
and he lowered the-he
did it himself.
I mean, he could have been
pulled over so easily himself,
and if he got pulled down,
he would have been killed.
- I was fighting for freedom
by trying to save life instead
of taking life, because I
couldn't picture Christ out there
with a gun, killing people.
I'd like to think of him out
there with an aid kit like me.
- He was an exceptional man.
To have the, to have the guts,
as we call it, to just go
back up there all the time and
go out and bring those guys
in when they were hit.
- Somebody can tell you
something, you know, but when you
actually see what this guy did
under combat conditions you
know this guy, he's all right.
That's the only way
you can look at it.
Just see what he did.
- [Voiceover] After another
four days of savage fighting,
the escarpment was still in
the hands of the Japanese.
Operation Iceberg had been
held up long enough, and the
other divisions needed to
continue their assault.
So invasion headquarters passed
down an order that Hacksaw
Ridge must be taken, no
matter what the cost.
Colonel Hamilton's battle-worn
307th regiment would make
one final all-out attack the
next morning, May 5th, 1945.
By now, the weary
men of B Company
had come to explicitly
trust Desmond.
He was their security blanket,
and they felt safe knowing
that Desmond would take
care of them no matter what.
But May 5 fell on a Saturday,
Desmond's day of rest.
- So Captain Vernon
asked me about going.
"Doss, you're now the
only medic we have left.
Would you mind?"
I told him, "Well,
I'd like to finish"
my private devotion first."
- Captain Vernon had his
orders but headquarters,
but he said, "Yeah, I'll do it."
- [Voiceover] Hidden in a
niche on top of the escarpment,
waiting to attack,
Jack Glover wondered
why there was a delay.
- And I heard from
Captain Vernon,
the captain of B Company,
that uh he had to delay it for
some time because Doss wanted
time to read his Bible.
And he wanted that time granted.
- [Voiceover] Captain Vernon
knew that his request to delay
the assault would affect
the entire division.
But he sent it up the
chain of command anyway.
- The time actually was
granted by Colonel Hamilton,
the commander of the regiment.
- [Voiceover] The same Colonel
Hamilton who tried to shame
Desmond into carrying a gun
back at Camp Hyder now put the
entire division on hold
while Desmond read his Bible.
- Des went off to the side to
prayer, and he said,
"Okay, I can go now."
It more or less said,
"I've got permission from
God, I can go with you!"
- [Voiceover] As the only
medic working with B Company,
Desmond had his
hands full again.
In the midst of the fierce
fighting, he not only took care
of his soldiers, he also treated
many of the men in Company A.
That day, the 307th regiment
held the escarpment, A-K-A
Hacksaw Ridge, for good.
The sun went down, and
Desmond's Sabbath ended.
- Being in the medical corp
it was a type of work I could
do seven days a week, and so
it didn't make any difference
if it was Sabbath or not.
It was doing good.
- If he had been without
the belief and without the
religious commitment, I think
he would have been much less
of a person doing his duty as
he did it with his commitment.
- He'd be like the rest of us.
- [Voiceover] Now
that the escarpment
had been secured, the
invasion could advance.
The number of dead and wounded
continued to swell
on both sides.
Near the base of the escarpment,
a Japanese artillery shell
nearly killed Jack Glover.
Coming to his aid was
the man that he had tried
so hard to kick out of the army.
- Right down there in some
spot on that parking lot, I was
wounded when the shell hit.
And that's when you came
over and treated my wounds.
My thought changed about how
wrong I was to say, for trying
have him kicked out, because
here he was doing a service,
and my mindset was in regard
to physically fighting a war,
and his mindset was
in treating wounded
and having nothing to
do with the war see.
- [Voiceover] On a moonless
night, May 21st, 1945,
Company B was on a covert mission
just a half-mile past the
escarpment, when Desmond himself
came close to being killed.
They inadvertently had walked
into a company of
Japanese soldiers.
It was hand-to-hand combat, and
in the chaos Desmond crawled
from soldier to soldier,
treating the wounded.
- And they began to throw
these hand grenades.
I saw it comin.
There was three other
men in the hole with me.
They were on the lower side,
but I was on the upper side
looking when they
threw the thing.
I knew there was no way I could
get out, so I just quickly
took my left foot
and throwed it back,
to where I thought the grenade
might be and throwed my head
and helmet to the ground.
And more than it
happened it blowed up.
I felt like I was
sailing through the air.
I was seeing stars I wasn't
supposed to be seein.
And I knew my legs and
buttocks were blown up.
- [Voiceover]
Desmond waited five
long hours before Ralph
Baker reached him.
As Baker and the other litter
bearers carried Desmond
through an intense
machine gun battle,
Desmond saw a soldier
lying unconscious,
a bullet wound to his head.
- You know, Terry, Desmond
was wounded, and while he was
laying in his litter wounded,
some guy got hit, and he
rolled off his litter to go
over and patch the guy up.
Now, who the hell would
do something like that?
- [Voiceover] After giving up
his litter, Desmond was hit
again, this time by a sniper's
bullet, shattering his arm.
Using what little strength
he had left, Desmond made a
splint out of a rifle
stock and crawled
the remaining three hundred
yards under fire until
he reached the safety
of the aid station.
Eventually, Desmond was taken
to the hospital ship Mercy.
It was here that he realized
something had been left behind.
- [Voiceover] May 31st, 1945.
Baby, did I tell you of my
misfortune of losing my
little Bible when I was hit?
I sure hate that.
But I'm in hopes that someone
has found it and is
holding it for me.
I'm planning on writing Company
B and see if anyone has it.
I sure hope so.
- That was my main source of
strength all during the
war and in the service.
And then when I
lost it, I was lost.
- [Voiceover] When the men
of Company B found out that
Desmond's Bible lay
somewhere on the battlefield,
they acted without hesitation.
Retracing Desmond's steps back
into the combat zone, they
searched the rough terrain
for Desmond's Bible,
and kept searching
until they found it.
- It really gives you a mixed
feeling, to where you feel
like crying, you can't keep
from crying, you feel so happy
to think they would
even risk their
life under those conditions.
I didn't know just how bad
the situation was at the time.
It wasn't until
later I found out
what they went through
to find it for me.
- [Voiceover] The war in
Okinawa claimed the lives of
115,000 Japanese soldiers.
It killed one-third of
the Okinawan population,
over 100,000 people.
And 15,000 American
soldiers gave their lives
on this piece of coral rock.
But on May 23rd, 1945, with
a fractured arm and seventeen
pieces of shrapnel
embedded in his body,
Desmond Doss headed home.
- There's not too many
people that would put
their life on the
line like he did.
A lot of those fellows that
he saved were ones that
rebuked him during training.
Then he turns around
and saves their life.
Uh, it takes quite
a man to do that.
- They called him a nut.
What a beautiful
nut, uh, oh Geez.
You know, what Desmond did,
you can't, I could talk to you
for a year and a half.
You'll never
believe what he did.
- I wouldn't take back the time
that I had known
him for nothin'.
- Boy, he deserves more than
a bronze star or a silver star.
Let's put him in for
the Medal of Honor.
- [Voiceover] Fifteen
heroes decorated by
President Truman with a
Congressional Medal of Honor.
Then the conscientious
objector hero,
Corporal Desmond Doss refused
to fight, refused to kill.
A medical corpsman, he displayed
self-sacrificing valor in
the care of the wounded.
Now he receives the nation's
highest military decoration,
and explains his view as
a conscientious objector.
- I thank God for letting me
do my part in this war, and
saving the lives
of my fellow men.
The reason why I
do not bear arms...
He came up, I saluted him, he
reached up and caught me by
my hand, and began shaking
it like an old-time friend.
I thought I was
going to be nervous.
He didn't even give me
a chance to get nervous!
And then he was tellin me,
"You really deserve this."
He said, "I consider this a
greater honor than being the"
President of the United States."
- [Voiceover] Desmond,
how do you feel
about receiving
the Medal of Honor?
- I feel very highly honored,
because I'd like to feel like
I am wearing it in honor of all
the men who paid the supreme
price for their country.
And I thank God he abled me
to do what I did to save life.
- [Voiceover]
Desmond's life has been
far from easy since the war.
His wounds left him a
hundred percent disabled,
including losing one lung due to
tuberculosis
contracted in Okinawa.
The army's efforts
to treat his TB ended
when they gave him an
overdose of antibiotics
that left him totally deaf.
- The equipment's like
myself, old and worn out.
Seems it's tryin to break
down faster than I can fix it.
- [Voiceover] In November of
1991, Desmond's wife, Dorothy,
died from brain cancer.
He later married
Frances, who has been
by his side for over a decade.
Together, they've created a
home that for me was like going
to Grandpa and Grandma's house,
a place that you want to get
there fast and leave slow.
The accolades
bestowed on Desmond
from the war have
not changed him.
Today he is still that same
little boy who walked six miles
to give blood to a
complete stranger,
and then turned around and
did it again a few days later.
He is a man at
peace with his life,
with his faith, and
with his memories.
But what became clear to me
was that his whole being was so
profound that it changed
the world around him.
I know, because
Desmond changed me.
- Even though I said those
things to him in regard to
carrying a rifle, and he would
never be by my damn side at
all unless he had a rifle, I
think, well, I was immature in
what I was saying, because I
wasn't uh, I didn't know him as
the man, I knew him only as a
skinny little kid in front of
me that I felt couldn't
carry the load.
But then in the long run, finding
out that not only was he a
skinny little kid, but not only
was he that, but 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.
From the beginning of his
first combat mission until the
last one, he absolutely was
fearless in regard to what was
going to happen to him.
You can go back over
Medal of Honor winners,
and it's because of one
absolute instant of decision.
And Doss' was a constant
doing of something that was so
outstanding, not only once,
but time and time and time and
time, and every time again.
- He did the right thing about,
in carrying out his obligations.
Not only his obligations to God,
but his obligations to
his fellow human beings,
and particularly to
his fellow Americans.
- There is a mystique about
him because he's a kind of a
loner, he's here and he's all
by himself at different times,
but that is Desmond.
It's enhanced by his deep faith
and his care for his fellow man.
Courage and bravery and
humility, he's got it.
You could run through the
alphabet with descriptive
adjectives and go from A to Z
or from alpha through omega in
the Greek, and you'd find some
word that vividly describes
the basic Desmond Doss.
I'm proud to have known him.
(battle march music)