Private First Class Desmond Doss CMH Citation

[kartographer]

With the movie out I thought this might be of interest:

http://www.cmohs.org/recipient-detail/2717/doss-desmond-t.php

Citation
He was a company aid man when the 1st Battalion assaulted a jagged escarpment 400 feet high As our troops gained the summit, a heavy concentration of artillery, mortar and machinegun 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 1 by 1 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 2 days later he treated 4 men who had been cut down while assaulting a strongly defended cave, advancing through a shower of grenades to within 8 yards of enemy forces in a cave's mouth, where he dressed his comrades' wounds before making 4 separate trips under fire to evacuate them to safety. On 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 aid man from cover, he cared for his own injuries and waited 5 hours before litter bearers reached him and started carrying him to cover. The trio was caught in an enemy tank attack and Pfc. Doss, seeing a more critically wounded man nearby, crawled off the litter; and directed the bearers to give their first attention to the other man. Awaiting the litter bearers' return, he was again struck, this time suffering a compound fracture of 1 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.

[mountaineer]

Amazing.  I hope to see the movie.

[TomSea]

Saturday, 05 November 2016
Hacksaw Ridge: Steadfast Love Amidst the Horrors of War
Written by  Michael E. Telzrow

Mel Gibson's directorial comeback effort, Hacksaw Ridge, plays fast and loose with the facts — but by no means all of the facts — surrounding the wartime exploits of conscientious objector, and devout Seventh Day Adventist, Desmond Doss. While Gibson's story can be faulted for taking some major liberties with Doss' life, in particular the portrayal of his father as a bitter, abusive WWI veteran, as well as the facts surrounding the Army's effort to discharge Doss for refusing to carry a rifle, it hits the mark in its portrayal of Doss' love of God and his fellow man. In some ways, this is not a war movie, but rather a love story with the Sixth Commandment as the guiding principle of Doss' convictions.

Andrew Garfield plays Doss close to perfection. His portrayal of the humble Virginian captures  Doss' love for his beloved wife Dorothy, played by Teresa Palmer, and his unshakeable resolve to never take a human life. The latter of which lands Doss in hot water with military authorities and his fellow soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division. Although threatened with court-martial, and subject to discharge on psychological grounds, Garfield was successful in convincing a reluctant battalion commander to let him stay in the army as a company aid man. Therefore, the dramatic court-martial scene in movie never actually occurred.

Read More At: http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/movies/item/24561-hacksaw-ridge-steadfast-love-amidst-the-horrors-of-war   

[TomSea]

Awaiting for the Apparatchik PC Police to tell us we shouldn't watch Mel Gibson because he said something mean 10 years ago.

[DCPatriot]

I just read that the only American cast in the movie is Vince Vaughn.

Everybody else is Australian utilizing American accents.   

[mountaineer]

Leave it to the New Yorker:

Mel Gibson’s “Hacksaw Ridge”: Religious Pomp Laced with Pornographic Violence
By Richard Brody , November 3, 2016
Excerpted: click on link for entire article

Here is a hack screenwriter in 1940, adding the finishing touch to a script: “Boris: (moved) War purifies and regenerates!” This hack (a creation of F. Scott Fitzgerald) finds his equivalent today in an esteemed director who, while making a film that expresses his revulsion for war and admiration for courage under fire, laces it with a fulsome strain of pornographic violence that counteracts his movie’s higher moral purpose. The director is Mel Gibson and the movie is “Hacksaw Ridge”; the subject is the true story of Desmond Doss, the only conscientious objector to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, for his bravery as a medic during the battle for Okinawa, in 1945.

Desmond (played by Andrew Garfield), a Seventh-Day Adventist from Virginia, enlisted for service, but as a medic. He not only refused to fight (due to his literal interpretation of the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”) but refused to even touch a rifle. Labelled a conscientious objector, he preferred to call himself a “conscientious coöperator” because, as an enlistee, he was devoted to serving the U.S. war effort, albeit by saving lives rather than taking them. Desmond (which we’ll call him to distinguish the character from the historical figure) is derided and punished by his sergeant (Vince Vaughn); mocked, brutalized, and ostracized by the other members of his company; and even subjected to a court-martial. But he also displays exceptional bravery in the scenes of war—lengthy and horrifically bloody, bullet-riddled and fiery, scream-wracked and explosion-shuddered—that are the very essence of Gibson’s film. Confronting enemy fire atop a plateau accessible only by climbing a sheer rock face, he searches for wounded survivors and lowers them, single-handedly, by means of ropes and knots of his own devising, to an Army base below.

The story is rooted in war and starts with war, and those scenes, at the start and, even more later on, are replete with mutilations and agonies, sprays and spurts of blood and cascades of human meat, seen in sharp detail and often shown in slow motion, which expresses a pleasure in staging and observing such grotesque and horrific violence—a pleasure that’s immediate, extra-moral, and personal. From the battlefield action that’s the film’s very raison d’être, Gibson (working with a script by Robert Schenkkan and Andrew Knight) builds a narrative that gets its deterministic backstory from another war as well—and from Desmond’s troubled relationship with his father, Tom (Hugo Weaving).   ...

When Steven Spielberg depicted the gory horrors of war in “Saving Private Ryan,” its effect was to assert that, in effect, we—their descendants—were the children of demigods, of virtual superheroes who had been through Hell on Earth to keep us safe; the idea meshes with his career-long cinematic theme and tone of filial piety. Gibson shows the same horrors with an irrepressible sense of excitement; with the best of intentions, an overt revulsion at war, and the honoring of Doss’s actions, Gibson has made a movie that’s nearly pathological in its love of violence—but he nonetheless counterbalances its amoral pleasures with an understanding of the psychological devastation that war wreaks.

Gibson’s depiction of the Second World War suggests that we are the children of the seriously f****d-up, of a generation that has left behind a seriously f****d-up world, which it’s up to us to face and somehow repair.   ...

Perhaps no more directorially vainglorious moment of religious pomp has ever been put on film.

Well, la-di-freakin-da.

[sneakypete]

With the movie out I thought this might be of interest:

http://www.cmohs.org/recipient-detail/2717/doss-desmond-t.php

His name became a symbol throughout the 77th Infantry Division for outstanding gallantry far above and beyond the call of duty.

@kartographer

Yeah,I can see that.

[sneakypete]

Amazing.  I hope to see the movie.

@mountaineer

I plan on seeing it,too.

PLEASE take note that the idea of an American solider being brave and selfless while rescuing people from killed by a minority was so repulsive to Hollywood that it is an independent film. None of the major studios would touch it.

[sneakypete]

Awaiting for the Apparatchik PC Police to tell us we shouldn't watch Mel Gibson because he said something mean 10 years ago.

@TomSea

Because he said something mean about JEWS. There is no bigger "crime" in Hollywood.

[sneakypete]

Leave it to the New Yorker:Well, la-di-freakin-da.

THERE was a 2 dollar hissy-fit by a snowflake if I have ever seen one.

He must have REALLY loved the blood sprays because he focused on them so much.

[driftdiver]

I'd recommend reading "with the old breed" by Eugene sledge.    Written by a guy who served in the Pacific as a mortar man.   Part of the HBO series Pacific was based on this book.

[mountaineer]

Excerpt from the Focus on the Family review of the film:

... As horrific as Hacksaw Ridge is, the real Battle of Okinawa was perhaps worse. It was one of the bloodiest conflicts in World War II's Pacific Theater, with more than 14,000 Allied deaths (mostly American), more than 77,000 Japanese fatalities and thousands upon thousands of Okinawan civilian casualties—with some of those civilians used as human shields by the Japanese or encouraged to commit suicide.

Other horrors are also kept from us in the film: The fact that Japan pushed middle school-aged boys into the front lines. In that era, the Japanese believed that death, even by suicide, was preferable to surrender. Okinawa's horrific casualties reportedly were an important factor in the U.S.'s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan instead of invading the Japanese mainland.

Okinawa's battlefield provides a fitting stage for director Mel Gibson, given his proclivity for violence in his movies. From Braveheart to The Passion of the Christ to Apocalypto, Gibson bathes the screen in blood, often using pain and destruction as a catalyst for stories about freedom and redemption. Gibson, a longtime Catholic, seems to believe quite literally in the saving power of blood.

Which makes Gibson's selection of his newest on-screen hero—the conscientious objector Desmond Doss—an interesting one. A director long fascinated by violence tells the story of a man who eschews it. Instead of giving us a hero who would die for his people, he gives us a hero who lives—and lives to save others.

Hacksaw Ridge is riveting cinema. But it's also bloody—as bloody as we've seen on screen for a long, long time. And while the horror and gore we see may impress upon us the depth Desmond's heroism, these images nevertheless assault us with their unblinking depiction of this hellish battle's carnage.

Here's the rest of it.

[sneakypete]

Excerpt from the Focus on the Family review of the film:Here's the rest of it.

I served on Okinawa with a man from early 1964 to late1967 that was already  a Corporal in the USMC when Pearl Harbor was bombed. At the time I met him he was a SGM (E-9) in the US Army. He told me he was a tank driver during the invasion of Okie,helped build the first stockade (military jail) there,and was the first prisoner.

If I ever knew  his first name I have forgotten it. Everybody that he knew and liked just called him "Pappy",and everybody else had the good sense to just leave him alone. NOBODY screws around with SGM's and gets away with it unless they are wearing stars,and even that isn't a sure thing.

Pretty much the entire north end of the island was off-limits then and sealed off with a tall chain link fence due to un-exploded ordinance from WW-2 still laying around,mostly Japanese booby traps guarding the entrances to underground tunnels and caves. Supposedly there was (is?) still a Japanese sub pen under the island where the Japanese subs used to surface to rearm or hide in that was just sealed off with explosives by the Army because doing so removed it as a threat and cost no US lives. Same thing with a huge cave used to store Japanese aircraft ,but that was supposed to have been done by the Japanese to keep the Americans from seizing the planes and armaments in there.

And who knows how many storerooms or troop billets in sealed off caves? By the time US troops got to the cave areas the automatic approach was to call out for a surrender,and if the Japanese didn't surrender,just hose them down with flamethrowers. The ones that didn't burn to death died from lack of oxygen. Some (many?) of the Japanese preferred a quicker death by blowing themselves and the caves up at the same time to deny the US soldiers access to their supplies.

Despite,and maybe even because,those places being off-limits,Pappy's major hobby was sneaking into the northern area when off-duty,and mapping out the caves and finding access points. His goal was to find,investigate,and map them all. Having been in the combat arms military for almost 30 years by that time,boobytraps didn't scare him very much. Plus,nobody was going to be shooting at him while he disarmed them.

He was still at it the last time I saw or spoke with him in late 67,and I never saw him again. I went back to Bragg,then to VN,and then back to Bragg again before getting out of the army. I have no idea if he was successful or not,or if anyone even got to access his records when he died. Or truth to tell,if anyone other than a handful of people who knew him on Okie even knew what he had been doing. Since what he was doing was illegal at the time,it wasn't something he talked a lot about.

I hope those records at least went to the Ft.Buckner museum on Okie so that maybe the curators there might be able to benefit from them.

[Smokin Joe]

THERE was a 2 dollar hissy-fit by a snowflake if I have ever seen one.

He must have REALLY loved the blood sprays because he focused on them so much.

Makes you wonder if he has seen the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, doesn't it? (Which were tame compared to what that beach was like).

[sneakypete]

Makes you wonder if he has seen the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, doesn't it? (Which were tame compared to what that beach was like).

@Smokin Joe

I can't figure out if this nonsense because unlike WW-2 what passes for a "combat correspondent" today is a PC reporter told to follow the company agenda that thinks he is on combat because he is in the same country it is happening and watching it on a video in real time instead of a guy with the troops taking the same chances they are,or if it is because some things can only be experienced,not told.

[skeeter]

Awaiting for the Apparatchik PC Police to tell us we shouldn't watch Mel Gibson because he said something mean 10 years ago.

I've already seen several sneering sanctimonious reviews from the usual suspects.

Gibson clearly has been a troubled guy, and today is as contrite and apologetic for his past behavior as anyone can be. But they'll never forgive him (as they do others) simply because he doesn't believe the same things they do.

[skeeter]

I'd recommend reading "with the old breed" by Eugene sledge.    Written by a guy who served in the Pacific as a mortar man.   Part of the HBO series Pacific was based on this book.

That one and 'A Helmut for my Pillow' by Robert Leckie (played by James Badge Dale in the series). Read both of them after watching it.

[mountaineer]

Makes you wonder if he has seen the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, doesn't it? (Which were tame compared to what that beach was like).

Of course, that's different. Spielberg is politically acceptable; Mel Gibson, not so much.

[Smokin Joe]

@Smokin Joe

I can't figure out if this nonsense because unlike WW-2 what passes for a "combat correspondent" today is a PC reporter told to follow the company agenda that thinks he is on combat because he is in the same country it is happening and watching it on a video in real time instead of a guy with the troops taking the same chances they are,or if it is because some things can only be experienced,not told.

The last embedded reporter I saw was Geraldo, drawing out a map in the sand of where everybody was and what they were going to do on the TV, live. Beyond stupid. He was extracted pretty damned quick, and should have been tragically lost in the action, imho. At least I can attest to the tremendous restraint of those who put his arse on a helo or in a Humvee and shipped him TF out of there.

Maybe the military decided it was safer for the troops to keep them with the REMFs, not so much safer for the correspondents (although that might have been an official factor).  Imagine going into a situation with some idiot twittering or Facebooking all over it.

I have never been in combat, but the situations I have been in were sometimes messy. Chaos is, well, chaotic, even if there is an underlying method in the madness. If you aren't there you miss out on the heat, pressure waves, and the smell, among other things. Stuff it is hard to get across on a screen somewhere. I saw 'We Were Soldiers Once and Young', and from what I was told, and how it seemed, Gibson does well with rendering combat on the screen. At least he has a clue.

I want to check that one out.

[sneakypete]

Of course, that's different. Spielberg is politically acceptable; Mel Gibson, not so much.

@mountaineer

Speilberg is also Jewish,and Gibson is a Catholic. In Hollywood that is a big deal.

[sneakypete]

The last embedded reporter I saw was Geraldo, drawing out a map in the sand of where everybody was and what they were going to do on the TV, live. Beyond stupid. He was extracted pretty damned quick, and should have been tragically lost in the action, imho. At least I can attest to the tremendous restraint of those who put his arse on a helo or in a Humvee and shipped him TF out of there.

Maybe the military decided it was safer for the troops to keep them with the REMFs,
I want to check that one out.

@Smokin Joe

Ok,that had never even occured to me,but I suspect that you are right.

As for "We Were Soldiers Once",it is the best damn movie that has ever been made about the US Army. All the characters were spot-ON! Especially Sam Elliott. I know somebody that served with SGM Plumley in a airborne infantry outfit,and he told me Elliot absolutely nailed Plumley.Even had the accent and the walk down.

Unusual for war movies,it showed what life was like in the peacetime army for career soldiers and their families as they prepared for and went off to war.

The nighttime battle scenes were so realistic they had my adrenaline flowing.

The only war movie I have ever seen that came as close to this one when it came to depecting combat was "Hamburger Hill" and "BlackHawk Down".  Hamburger Hill had a lot of Hollywood BS in it,but the battle scenes were dead on the money. Black Hawk down was the most accurate look into the life of a SF soldier in combat that I have ever seen.

[Smokin Joe]

@Smokin Joe

Ok,that had never even occured to me,but I suspect that you are right.

As for "We Were Soldiers Once",it is the best damn movie that has ever been made about the US Army. All the characters were spot-ON! Especially Sam Elliott. I know somebody that served with SGM Plumley in a airborne infantry outfit,and he told me Elliot absolutely nailed Plumley.Even had the accent and the walk down.

Unusual for war movies,it showed what life was like in the peacetime army for career soldiers and their families as they prepared for and went off to war.

The nighttime battle scenes were so realistic they had my adrenaline flowing.

The only war movie I have ever seen that came as close to this one when it came to depecting combat was "Hamburger Hill" and "BlackHawk Down".  Hamburger Hill had a lot of Hollywood BS in it,but the battle scenes were dead on the money. Black Hawk down was the most accurate look into the life of a SF soldier in combat that I have ever seen.

Those were the three that rang true, credibility wise with me. I wasn't there, but they were more engaged with telling THE story, rather than A story, and not sanitized like the older movies about WWII, or pushing an agenda like so many in between.