Desmond Doss Commemorative Event Scheduled For March 23

The Chattanooga community will come together at noon on Thursday, March 23, at the Chattanooga National Cemetery to commemorate the life and legacy of Medal of Honor recipient Desmond Doss.  The event is jointly sponsored by the Charles H. Coolidge Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Desmond Doss Council, the Chief John Ross Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, the Desmond Doss American Legion Post and Chattanooga and Hamilton County governments.  The public is invited to attend the commemorative service where friends and his former pastor will recall Doss’s strong commitment to his faith and his service to his country. A wreath ceremony will also occur.

Mr. Doss, whose courage, conviction and heroic efforts were portrayed in Hacksaw Ridge, wanted to serve his country during World War II but, as a devout Seventh Day Adventist, he chose not to bear arms and instead joined the Army’s Medical Corps. During basic training, other recruits considered him strange because of his deep religious convictions and threatened, harassed and physically attacked him with a goal of getting him to transfer from the unit or leave the U. S. Army. Doss successfully fought all efforts to discharge him.

Private Doss served as a medic with the 77^th Division I campaigns on Guam and Leyte in 1944 where his bravery under fire, as an unarmed medic, earned him the respect of his comrades.  But it was at Okinawa where Doss’s conviction that he was doing God’s work changed the course of the battle.

On April 29, his battalion assaulted a jagged 400-foot escarpment, commanded by Japanese forces.  Each day, Doss treated soldiers who had been cut down and dragged them to safety while the bullets swirled around him. On May 5, a Saturday and Doss’s Sabbath, he was the only medic available as the battle raged.  Telling himself that Christ had healed seven days a week, he advanced with the rest of the men. Most of the soldiers were eventually forced back to the face of the cliffs, leaving dozens of wounded on the field.

Mr. Doss alone stayed with the fallen soldiers, tended the wounded and dragged each man to the escarpment where he lowered them to safety.  His prayer was ‘Dear God, let me get just one more man.” By the next day, he had rescued more than one hundred men and earned a well-deserved place in history. Mr. Doss, however, would quietly acknowledge the complimentary words and instead remind all that his actions should point others to understand the power and love of God.

For his selfless actions, President Harry Truman presented the Medal of Honor to Private Doss on October 12, 1945.

Here is the agenda for the commemoration:

Welcome - Linda Moss Mines, Historian, Chattanooga and Hamilton County

Invocation - Lt. Col. Ray Adkins, U. S. Army [Ret], Chattanooga Area Veterans Council

Presentation of Colors - JROTC Honor Guard, Red Bank High School

Pledge of Allegiance - Charles Googe, Executive Director, Charles H. Coolidge Medal of Honor Heritage Center, Teresa Webb RImer, Cherokee District Director, Chief John Ross Chapter, TSDAR

Comments - General Carl Levi, US Army National Guard [Ret.], Chattanooga Area Veterans Council, Major General Bill Raines, US Army [Ret.], Charles H. Coolidge Medal of Honor Heritage Center

Placement of Wreath - Owen M. Cook, Post Vice-Commander, American Legion Desmond T. Doss Chapter, Jessica M. Dumitru, Regent, Chief John Ross Chapter, Tennessee Society Daughters of the American Revolution

Benediction - Les Speer, Mr. Doss’s Former Pastor, Secretary, Desmond Doss Council