Table of Contents
EARLY LIFE
- Desmond Doss was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, to William Thomas Doss (1893– 1989),a carpenter, and Bertha Edward Doss (1899–1983),a homemaker and shoe factory worker.
- His mother raised him as a devout Seventh-day Adventist and instilled Sabbath-keeping, nonviolence, and a vegetarian lifestyle in his upbringing. He grew up in the Fairview Heights along with his younger brother Harold
WORLD WAR II
- Before the outbreak of World War II, Doss was employed as a joiner at a shipyard in Newport News, Virginia.He chose military service.
- On April 1, 1942, at Camp Lee, Virginia He was sent to Fort Jackson in South Carolina for training with the reactivated 77th Infantry Division.
- Doss refused to kill an enemy soldier or carry a weapon into combat because of his personal beliefs as a Seventh-day Adventist.He consequently became a medic assigned to the 2nd Platoon.
HACKSAW RIDGE
- During the Battle of Okinawa, he saved the lives of 50–100 wounded infantrymen atop the area known by the 96th Division as the Maeda Escarpment or Hacksaw Ridge.
- Doss was wounded four times in Okinawa, and was evacuated on May 21, 1945.
- Doss suffered a left arm fracture from a sniper’s bullet and at one point had seventeen pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Okinawa.
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