October 12, 2024 • 20 mins
This 2016 episode covers Desmond T. Doss, the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Happy Saturday. On October twelfth, nineteen forty five, or seventy
nine years ago today, Desmond T. Doss was awarded the
Medal of Honor, making him the first conscientious objector to
receive that award.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Our episode on Desmond T. Doss originally came out on
July twenty fifth, twenty sixteen, and it is Today's Saturday
Classic Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class,
a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:39):
I'm Tracy B. Wilson. I'm Holly Fryme.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
We pretty recently did two episodes on Byered Restin, and
in those episodes we talked a little bit about conscience
objection to military service. Byed Restin was a Quaker, and
because he was a pacifist, his conscience objection to war
also evolved to include an objection to conscripting people into
the military. So at one point he had actually registered
(01:03):
as a conscientious objector, which meant that if he had
been drafted, he could be assigned to alternate non combat service.
But after this evolution in his views, he instead rescinded
his registration and went to federal prison instead. Some of
the response that we got to that episode, moved today's
topic farther up ahead on my shortlist of subjects. My
(01:25):
shortlist is like fifty things long. Yeah, my shortlist has
a very similar number. It's fart with the air course.
Oh yeah, it's the whole year worth of podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Uh. So it moved this topic ahead in that in
that shortlist. A. Desmond T.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Doss was also a conscientious objector, but his choices relating
to this objection took a really different form from buyered restins.
Doss did serve in the military in a non combat role,
and he was the first conscientious objector to be awarded
the Medal of Honor. So today we're going to talk
about him, as well as a little bit about two
other conscientious objectors who have also been awarded the same honor.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Before we get into DOS's story, we're going to level
set a little bit with a look at some of
the history of conscience objection in the Western world. Das
and both of the other men that we're going to
talk about were from the United States, but conscience objection
in general is something that exists in a lot of
other nations as well. So although the basic idea is
(02:27):
a whole lot older. The term conscientious objector seems to
have been coined sometime in the early nineteenth century to
describe a person who refuses to comply with the requirement
because doing so would violate their conscience. So this term
has been applied to all kinds of requirements related to
lots of different services and fields and circumstances. This includes
(02:49):
medicine and law, but today we are really sticking to
the context of conscience and military service. Issues of conscience
objection typically only come up when military service is mandatory
in some way. This was true of the person typically
cited as history's first conscientious subjector. That was Maximilianus, who
(03:09):
was the son of a Roman army veteran. He was
required to join the military when he turned twenty one,
and this was back in the year two ninety five.
Maximilianus refused, citing his Christian beliefs as his reason for refusal,
and he was beheaded for doing so.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Historically, conscience objection to military service has usually not always
been connected to pacifist religions, and this meant that in
Europe conscience subjection became a lot more common following the
Protestant Reformation. After the Reformation, the number and focus of
religious denominations became a lot more diverse, and a lot
(03:47):
more people began to choose which faith to belong to
rather than following a state sponsored or nationally consistent religion.
So Mennonites, for example, were exempt from mandatory guard duties
because of their pacifist beliefs. During the Dutch Wars of
Independence in the sixteenth century.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Standards and rules about how to handle conscience objections also spread,
along with conscription into standing armies in Europe following the
French Revolution. Nations saw a need to establish and maintain
a standing army, but they also saw a need not
to force their citizens to violate their religious principles in
doing so. It was really the twentieth century before conscience
(04:30):
objection sort of coalesced into an anti war movement strategy.
That was when people really started to describe themselves as
conscientious objectors rather than describing conscription or military service or
a specific war as something that was against their religion.
And the idea that someone could have a conscious objection
(04:51):
to war personally without being without it being based in
a very specific organized religion started to become more common
around the First World War as well, and at the
start of World War One, many European nations and the
United States added specific conscience objection rules to their conscription policies,
in part because of advocacy on the part of pacifist
(05:12):
religious groups. When World War One ended, most but not
all European nations ended their conscription programs, which temporarily tabled
the issue of conscience objection. When conscriptions started up again.
Before and during World War II, a lot of nations
again offered alternative service to conscientious objectors, although people who
(05:34):
felt like their conscience wouldn't allow them to support the
war in any way, even if it were in a
non combat role, still usually wound up being sentenced to
time in prison. Today, many nations around the world view
conscience objection as a fundamental human right protected by international law.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the
(05:55):
United Nations General Assembly on December tenth of nineteen forty
eight in the wake of World War II. Article eighteen
of that declaration reads quote, everyone has the right to
freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. This right includes freedom
to change his religion or belief, and freedom either alone
or in a community with others, and in public or
(06:16):
private to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship,
and observance.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Article eighteen of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
which is adopted in nineteen sixty six, builds on this idea.
Further Part one of that article is really similar to
what Holly just read, and then it continues too. No
one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his
freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Of his choice. Three.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject
only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and
are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals,
or the fundamental right and freedoms of others. Although this
Declaration and Covenant don't specifically mention conscience objection, many nations
(07:10):
have interpreted conscience subjection as an aspect of the freedom
of thought, conscience, and religion. Also, the United Nations Commission
on Human Rights, which was replaced by the Human Rights
Council in two thousand and six, has issued a number
of other declarations that do specifically address conscience objection, although
these aren't legally binding among member states, they spell out
(07:31):
conscience objection as being part of the fundamental human right
to freedom of thought. The first of these was Resolution
nineteen eighty seven forty six, which was passed in nineteen
eighty seven with twenty six votes in favor, two against,
and fourteen abstentions. The following year, the Commission on Human
Rights issued Resolution nineteen eighty eight seventy seven, specifying that
(07:52):
everyone has the right to conscience objection and calling on
states that don't have conscience objection policies to develop them
in a non discriminatory way. A number of other resolutions
upholding the right the conscience objection have followed since then.
Not every United Nations member state has agreed with those
resolutions or with the interpretation that conscience objection is a
(08:15):
fundamental human right. For example, Singapore drafted a letter to
the Commission in two thousand and two that was co
signed by sixteen member states. Those include Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon,
me and mar Rwanda, Singapore, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Tanzania, and Vietnam,
(08:38):
stating that they quote do not recognize the universal applicability
of conscientious objection to military service, and of course, not
every nation on earth is a member state of the
United Nations. There are so many nuances to all this,
and from an ethical and moral standpoint, the decision to
object or not to object is an incredibly personal line.
(09:00):
And if conscience objection is a fundamental human right, then
that means that people who do serve in the military
are fighting to protect the right not to, whether they
agree with the existence of that right or not. And
there have also been lots of times in history when
the idea of conscience objections has become just incredibly divisive,
and the most obvious is probably during the Vietnam War.
(09:23):
All of that is really outside the scope of our
show today, but we would be remiss.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
If we did not at least acknowledge it. So for
Desmond T. Dos the decision not to fight was not
actually even something he thought of as a conscience objection.
He actually preferred to be called a conscientious cooperator. And
we're going to talk about him after a brief word
from one of our sponsors. Desmond T.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Doss was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, on February seventh, nineteen nineteen.
His mother worked in a shoe factory, and his father
was a carpenter, and their family were members of the
Seventh day Adventist Church. In their home, they had a
framed poster that displayed the illustrated ten Commandments in the
Lord's Prayer, and the illustration of the sixth commandment of
(10:16):
Thou shalt not kill was of Cain having just killed
his brother Abel from the Book of Genesis. This image
had an almost visceral impact on the young Desmond. He
was appalled at the idea that one brother could murder another,
and he also believed that bearing arms was a sin
against God. In April of nineteen forty two, Dawson listed
(10:39):
in the Army for World War Two. Although he was
designated as a conscientious objector, he didn't actually have an
objection to serving as long as he didn't have to
kill anyone or carry a weapon and could observe the
Sabbath each Saturday. To reconcile his service with his faith,
Dos became a medic. Being a medic would let him
(11:00):
help people rather than harm them, and he didn't have
an objection to doing actual medical work on Saturday, since
and his words quote Christ, healed on a Sabbath. Even so,
Das faced harassment and derision from his peers while they
were in training. In addition to his religious refusal to
carry a weapon or do non medical work like participating
(11:21):
in drills on Saturdays, he continued his practice of devotion
in prayers. He was also a vegetarian for religious reasons.
At one point, his commanding officer attempted to have him
discharged from the army on the grounds that he was
mentally ill. Doas's response quote, I'd be a very poor
Christian if I accepted a discharge implying that I was
(11:43):
mentally off because of my religion. In the end, though,
Das completed his training and was deployed with the three
hundred seventh Infantry seventy seventh Infantry Division. He left for
Guam in the summer of nineteen forty four, and he
served as a me both there and on the island
of Leati and the Philippines, earning the Bronze Star for
(12:05):
his heroism. In the spring of nineteen forty five, Dos
was part of the Battle of Okinawa, which stretched from
April first to June twenty second of nineteen forty five
and pitted the US and its allies against Japanese troops
that were deeply entrenched in caves, tunnels, and other cover
DOS's unit was on the four hundred foot tall ridge
(12:25):
at Maida Escarpment when a Japanese force staged a counter
attack on Saturday, May fifth of nineteen forty five. Dos
was the only medic with them on the escarpment, and
while some of the American force was able to retreat
back down, a lot of the men who were wounded
were stranded on top of this ridge and pinned down
(12:46):
under fire from the Japanese force.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Dos remained with the wounded men, and he rigged a
sling to evacuate them one at a time down the
face of a cliff, using knots and techniques that he
had learned as a youth when working in a flood rescue.
He used a tree stump to anchor his sling. He
loaded each wounded man into it, and he lowered them
thirty five feet to safety on a protected ledge below.
(13:11):
He did this over and over while under fire, until
every man was down, and then he lowered himself. His
commanding officer wanted to credit him with saving one hundred
men's lives that day. He said it was only more
like fifty, and they eventually compromised at seventy five. His
heroic efforts to save people's lives did not stop there, though.
(13:32):
He basically continued to rescue men from under fire repeatedly,
including carrying people to safety while being fired upon for
pretty much the whole next week. On May twelfth, he
was injured by a grenade and had multiple shrapnel injuries
to his legs. Although another medic was nearby, Dos cared
for his injuries himself for five hours rather than having
(13:54):
any other medic risk his own safety and come to help. Then,
when Dos was finally evacuated, he saw another soldier whose
need he thought was greater, so he got off the
litter he was being carried on and asked the medics
to take care of that other man instead. Then, while
he was waiting for them to come back for him,
he was struck in the arm by enemy fire and
(14:16):
sustained a compound fracture. Impossibly the only time in his
life that he ever handled a weapon, he made a
splint for himself out of a rifle stock and then
crawled to an aid station three hundred yards away with
one of his arms broken. And splinted. Just stand in
awe of all of this. I can't even grasp the
(14:38):
fortitude a person has to have, which is why he
earned the nickname the wonder Man of Okinawa. DESMONDI.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Das was one of the men awarded the Medal of
Honor by President Harry S. Truman on October twelfth, nineteen
forty five. Doss had been a private when he took
these actions that led to this recognition, and he was
a corporal when it was actually a war to him.
His injuries from the war, however, were extensive and he
needed ongoing medical care, and he eventually lost along to tuberculosis.
(15:09):
He spent about six years in hospitals trying to recover,
and he had planned to go to a trade school
and become a florist, but the extent of his injuries
and illnesses made that impossible. He devoted most of his
life instead to religious work, and in nineteen seventy six
he suddenly lost his hearing. In nineteen ninety one, DOS's
(15:30):
first wife, Dorothy he had married in nineteen forty two
before leaving for the service, died in a car accident.
He remarried about three years later, and his second wife, Francis,
was still living when Dos died on March twenty third,
two thousand and six, at the age of eighty seven.
In nineteen eighty seven, he said in an interview quote,
I wasn't trying to be a hero. I was thinking
(15:51):
about it from this standpoint. In a house on fire
and a mother has a child in that house, what
prompts her to go in and get that child?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Love? I loved my men, and they loved me. I
don't consider myself a hero. I just couldn't give them up,
just like that mother couldn't give up the child. For
all of his life, he credited God with his survival
during the war. After another brief sponsor break, we will
talk a little bit about two other conscientious objectors who
(16:19):
have also been awarded the Medal of Honor. We spoke
right before the break about two other conscientious objectors who
have also been awarded the Medal of Honor, and both
of them received that honor for work as medics in Vietnam.
(16:41):
The first was Thomas W. Bennett of Morgantown, West Virginia.
His military records didn't list a denominational preference, but sources
suggest that he was raised either Methodist or Southern Baptist. Regardless,
he attended the services of multiple denominations, and he came
to a sincerely held belief that all life was sacred.
He also vehemently objected to the United States involvement in
(17:04):
the Vietnam War. Specifically, Bennett was drafted during that involvement
in Vietnam, and after he'd lost his student deferment due
to poor grades at West Virginia University, he wound up
registering as a conscientious objector who was willing to serve
in a non combat role. He became a medic and
was eventually deployed to Vietnam. On February ninth of nineteen
(17:27):
sixty nine, his platoon there was ambushed. In the words
of his Medal of Honor citation quote, Corporal Bennett, with
complete disregard for his safety, ran through the heavy fire
to his fallen comrades, administered life saving first aid under fire,
and then made repeated trips carrying the wounded men to
positions of relative safety from which they would be medically
(17:48):
evacuated from the battle position. Corporal Bennett repeatedly braved the
intense enemy fire, moving across open areas to give aid
and comfort to his wounded comrades. Valiantly exposed himself to
the heavy fire in order to retrieve the bodies of
several fallen personnel.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Then, as the whole platoon was awaiting for helicopters to
rescue the injured men, he spent the night outside the
safety of any kind of shelter, tending to wounded people
who couldn't be moved.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
On February eleventh, a similar event happened again when the
platoon came under sniper fire, and once again Bennett put
himself at risk repeatedly to try to aid the wounded,
including an attempt to save a fellow soldier who had
fallen ahead of the company's position. Even though he was
warned that the fallen soldier would be impossible to reach
given where he was in the amount of enemy fire,
(18:40):
Bennett tried anyway, and he was mortally wounded in the process.
He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on April
seventh of nineteen seventy, which would have been his twenty
third birthday. The third conscientious objector to be awarded the
Medal of Honor was Specialist for Joseph G. Lapointe Junior,
and there's not as much biographical inform that's publicly available
(19:01):
on him. Army records, though identified him as a Baptist.
On June second of nineteen sixty nine, the patrol he
was on fell under heavy enemy fire. He rendered aid
while under fire to two injured soldiers, and to do
so he had to crawl directly into the line of
sight of an enemy bunker. He resorted to shielding the
two fallen men with his own body, but all three
(19:24):
were killed by an enemy grenade. In addition to his
Medal of Honor, Lapointe was also posthumously awarded the Silver Star.
He was survived by his wife, Cindy, and his son,
also named Joseph, who was unfortunately born after his father's death.
And that's a little bit about conscience objection and conscientious objectors.
(19:50):
Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If
you'd like to send us a note, our email addresses
History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe
to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Happy Saturday. On October twelfth, nineteen forty five, or seventy
nine years ago today, Desmond T. Doss was awarded the
Medal of Honor, making him the first conscientious objector to
receive that award.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Our episode on Desmond T. Doss originally came out on
July twenty fifth, twenty sixteen, and it is Today's Saturday
Classic Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class,
a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:39):
I'm Tracy B. Wilson. I'm Holly Fryme.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
We pretty recently did two episodes on Byered Restin, and
in those episodes we talked a little bit about conscience
objection to military service. Byed Restin was a Quaker, and
because he was a pacifist, his conscience objection to war
also evolved to include an objection to conscripting people into
the military. So at one point he had actually registered
(01:03):
as a conscientious objector, which meant that if he had
been drafted, he could be assigned to alternate non combat service.
But after this evolution in his views, he instead rescinded
his registration and went to federal prison instead. Some of
the response that we got to that episode, moved today's
topic farther up ahead on my shortlist of subjects. My
(01:25):
shortlist is like fifty things long. Yeah, my shortlist has
a very similar number. It's fart with the air course.
Oh yeah, it's the whole year worth of podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Uh. So it moved this topic ahead in that in
that shortlist. A. Desmond T.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Doss was also a conscientious objector, but his choices relating
to this objection took a really different form from buyered restins.
Doss did serve in the military in a non combat role,
and he was the first conscientious objector to be awarded
the Medal of Honor. So today we're going to talk
about him, as well as a little bit about two
other conscientious objectors who have also been awarded the same honor.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Before we get into DOS's story, we're going to level
set a little bit with a look at some of
the history of conscience objection in the Western world. Das
and both of the other men that we're going to
talk about were from the United States, but conscience objection
in general is something that exists in a lot of
other nations as well. So although the basic idea is
(02:27):
a whole lot older. The term conscientious objector seems to
have been coined sometime in the early nineteenth century to
describe a person who refuses to comply with the requirement
because doing so would violate their conscience. So this term
has been applied to all kinds of requirements related to
lots of different services and fields and circumstances. This includes
(02:49):
medicine and law, but today we are really sticking to
the context of conscience and military service. Issues of conscience
objection typically only come up when military service is mandatory
in some way. This was true of the person typically
cited as history's first conscientious subjector. That was Maximilianus, who
(03:09):
was the son of a Roman army veteran. He was
required to join the military when he turned twenty one,
and this was back in the year two ninety five.
Maximilianus refused, citing his Christian beliefs as his reason for refusal,
and he was beheaded for doing so.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Historically, conscience objection to military service has usually not always
been connected to pacifist religions, and this meant that in
Europe conscience subjection became a lot more common following the
Protestant Reformation. After the Reformation, the number and focus of
religious denominations became a lot more diverse, and a lot
(03:47):
more people began to choose which faith to belong to
rather than following a state sponsored or nationally consistent religion.
So Mennonites, for example, were exempt from mandatory guard duties
because of their pacifist beliefs. During the Dutch Wars of
Independence in the sixteenth century.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Standards and rules about how to handle conscience objections also spread,
along with conscription into standing armies in Europe following the
French Revolution. Nations saw a need to establish and maintain
a standing army, but they also saw a need not
to force their citizens to violate their religious principles in
doing so. It was really the twentieth century before conscience
(04:30):
objection sort of coalesced into an anti war movement strategy.
That was when people really started to describe themselves as
conscientious objectors rather than describing conscription or military service or
a specific war as something that was against their religion.
And the idea that someone could have a conscious objection
(04:51):
to war personally without being without it being based in
a very specific organized religion started to become more common
around the First World War as well, and at the
start of World War One, many European nations and the
United States added specific conscience objection rules to their conscription policies,
in part because of advocacy on the part of pacifist
(05:12):
religious groups. When World War One ended, most but not
all European nations ended their conscription programs, which temporarily tabled
the issue of conscience objection. When conscriptions started up again.
Before and during World War II, a lot of nations
again offered alternative service to conscientious objectors, although people who
(05:34):
felt like their conscience wouldn't allow them to support the
war in any way, even if it were in a
non combat role, still usually wound up being sentenced to
time in prison. Today, many nations around the world view
conscience objection as a fundamental human right protected by international law.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the
(05:55):
United Nations General Assembly on December tenth of nineteen forty
eight in the wake of World War II. Article eighteen
of that declaration reads quote, everyone has the right to
freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. This right includes freedom
to change his religion or belief, and freedom either alone
or in a community with others, and in public or
(06:16):
private to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship,
and observance.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Article eighteen of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
which is adopted in nineteen sixty six, builds on this idea.
Further Part one of that article is really similar to
what Holly just read, and then it continues too. No
one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his
freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Of his choice. Three.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject
only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and
are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals,
or the fundamental right and freedoms of others. Although this
Declaration and Covenant don't specifically mention conscience objection, many nations
(07:10):
have interpreted conscience subjection as an aspect of the freedom
of thought, conscience, and religion. Also, the United Nations Commission
on Human Rights, which was replaced by the Human Rights
Council in two thousand and six, has issued a number
of other declarations that do specifically address conscience objection, although
these aren't legally binding among member states, they spell out
(07:31):
conscience objection as being part of the fundamental human right
to freedom of thought. The first of these was Resolution
nineteen eighty seven forty six, which was passed in nineteen
eighty seven with twenty six votes in favor, two against,
and fourteen abstentions. The following year, the Commission on Human
Rights issued Resolution nineteen eighty eight seventy seven, specifying that
(07:52):
everyone has the right to conscience objection and calling on
states that don't have conscience objection policies to develop them
in a non discriminatory way. A number of other resolutions
upholding the right the conscience objection have followed since then.
Not every United Nations member state has agreed with those
resolutions or with the interpretation that conscience objection is a
(08:15):
fundamental human right. For example, Singapore drafted a letter to
the Commission in two thousand and two that was co
signed by sixteen member states. Those include Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon,
me and mar Rwanda, Singapore, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Tanzania, and Vietnam,
(08:38):
stating that they quote do not recognize the universal applicability
of conscientious objection to military service, and of course, not
every nation on earth is a member state of the
United Nations. There are so many nuances to all this,
and from an ethical and moral standpoint, the decision to
object or not to object is an incredibly personal line.
(09:00):
And if conscience objection is a fundamental human right, then
that means that people who do serve in the military
are fighting to protect the right not to, whether they
agree with the existence of that right or not. And
there have also been lots of times in history when
the idea of conscience objections has become just incredibly divisive,
and the most obvious is probably during the Vietnam War.
(09:23):
All of that is really outside the scope of our
show today, but we would be remiss.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
If we did not at least acknowledge it. So for
Desmond T. Dos the decision not to fight was not
actually even something he thought of as a conscience objection.
He actually preferred to be called a conscientious cooperator. And
we're going to talk about him after a brief word
from one of our sponsors. Desmond T.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Doss was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, on February seventh, nineteen nineteen.
His mother worked in a shoe factory, and his father
was a carpenter, and their family were members of the
Seventh day Adventist Church. In their home, they had a
framed poster that displayed the illustrated ten Commandments in the
Lord's Prayer, and the illustration of the sixth commandment of
(10:16):
Thou shalt not kill was of Cain having just killed
his brother Abel from the Book of Genesis. This image
had an almost visceral impact on the young Desmond. He
was appalled at the idea that one brother could murder another,
and he also believed that bearing arms was a sin
against God. In April of nineteen forty two, Dawson listed
(10:39):
in the Army for World War Two. Although he was
designated as a conscientious objector, he didn't actually have an
objection to serving as long as he didn't have to
kill anyone or carry a weapon and could observe the
Sabbath each Saturday. To reconcile his service with his faith,
Dos became a medic. Being a medic would let him
(11:00):
help people rather than harm them, and he didn't have
an objection to doing actual medical work on Saturday, since
and his words quote Christ, healed on a Sabbath. Even so,
Das faced harassment and derision from his peers while they
were in training. In addition to his religious refusal to
carry a weapon or do non medical work like participating
(11:21):
in drills on Saturdays, he continued his practice of devotion
in prayers. He was also a vegetarian for religious reasons.
At one point, his commanding officer attempted to have him
discharged from the army on the grounds that he was
mentally ill. Doas's response quote, I'd be a very poor
Christian if I accepted a discharge implying that I was
(11:43):
mentally off because of my religion. In the end, though,
Das completed his training and was deployed with the three
hundred seventh Infantry seventy seventh Infantry Division. He left for
Guam in the summer of nineteen forty four, and he
served as a me both there and on the island
of Leati and the Philippines, earning the Bronze Star for
(12:05):
his heroism. In the spring of nineteen forty five, Dos
was part of the Battle of Okinawa, which stretched from
April first to June twenty second of nineteen forty five
and pitted the US and its allies against Japanese troops
that were deeply entrenched in caves, tunnels, and other cover
DOS's unit was on the four hundred foot tall ridge
(12:25):
at Maida Escarpment when a Japanese force staged a counter
attack on Saturday, May fifth of nineteen forty five. Dos
was the only medic with them on the escarpment, and
while some of the American force was able to retreat
back down, a lot of the men who were wounded
were stranded on top of this ridge and pinned down
(12:46):
under fire from the Japanese force.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Dos remained with the wounded men, and he rigged a
sling to evacuate them one at a time down the
face of a cliff, using knots and techniques that he
had learned as a youth when working in a flood rescue.
He used a tree stump to anchor his sling. He
loaded each wounded man into it, and he lowered them
thirty five feet to safety on a protected ledge below.
(13:11):
He did this over and over while under fire, until
every man was down, and then he lowered himself. His
commanding officer wanted to credit him with saving one hundred
men's lives that day. He said it was only more
like fifty, and they eventually compromised at seventy five. His
heroic efforts to save people's lives did not stop there, though.
(13:32):
He basically continued to rescue men from under fire repeatedly,
including carrying people to safety while being fired upon for
pretty much the whole next week. On May twelfth, he
was injured by a grenade and had multiple shrapnel injuries
to his legs. Although another medic was nearby, Dos cared
for his injuries himself for five hours rather than having
(13:54):
any other medic risk his own safety and come to help. Then,
when Dos was finally evacuated, he saw another soldier whose
need he thought was greater, so he got off the
litter he was being carried on and asked the medics
to take care of that other man instead. Then, while
he was waiting for them to come back for him,
he was struck in the arm by enemy fire and
(14:16):
sustained a compound fracture. Impossibly the only time in his
life that he ever handled a weapon, he made a
splint for himself out of a rifle stock and then
crawled to an aid station three hundred yards away with
one of his arms broken. And splinted. Just stand in
awe of all of this. I can't even grasp the
(14:38):
fortitude a person has to have, which is why he
earned the nickname the wonder Man of Okinawa. DESMONDI.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Das was one of the men awarded the Medal of
Honor by President Harry S. Truman on October twelfth, nineteen
forty five. Doss had been a private when he took
these actions that led to this recognition, and he was
a corporal when it was actually a war to him.
His injuries from the war, however, were extensive and he
needed ongoing medical care, and he eventually lost along to tuberculosis.
(15:09):
He spent about six years in hospitals trying to recover,
and he had planned to go to a trade school
and become a florist, but the extent of his injuries
and illnesses made that impossible. He devoted most of his
life instead to religious work, and in nineteen seventy six
he suddenly lost his hearing. In nineteen ninety one, DOS's
(15:30):
first wife, Dorothy he had married in nineteen forty two
before leaving for the service, died in a car accident.
He remarried about three years later, and his second wife, Francis,
was still living when Dos died on March twenty third,
two thousand and six, at the age of eighty seven.
In nineteen eighty seven, he said in an interview quote,
I wasn't trying to be a hero. I was thinking
(15:51):
about it from this standpoint. In a house on fire
and a mother has a child in that house, what
prompts her to go in and get that child?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Love? I loved my men, and they loved me. I
don't consider myself a hero. I just couldn't give them up,
just like that mother couldn't give up the child. For
all of his life, he credited God with his survival
during the war. After another brief sponsor break, we will
talk a little bit about two other conscientious objectors who
(16:19):
have also been awarded the Medal of Honor. We spoke
right before the break about two other conscientious objectors who
have also been awarded the Medal of Honor, and both
of them received that honor for work as medics in Vietnam.
(16:41):
The first was Thomas W. Bennett of Morgantown, West Virginia.
His military records didn't list a denominational preference, but sources
suggest that he was raised either Methodist or Southern Baptist. Regardless,
he attended the services of multiple denominations, and he came
to a sincerely held belief that all life was sacred.
He also vehemently objected to the United States involvement in
(17:04):
the Vietnam War. Specifically, Bennett was drafted during that involvement
in Vietnam, and after he'd lost his student deferment due
to poor grades at West Virginia University, he wound up
registering as a conscientious objector who was willing to serve
in a non combat role. He became a medic and
was eventually deployed to Vietnam. On February ninth of nineteen
(17:27):
sixty nine, his platoon there was ambushed. In the words
of his Medal of Honor citation quote, Corporal Bennett, with
complete disregard for his safety, ran through the heavy fire
to his fallen comrades, administered life saving first aid under fire,
and then made repeated trips carrying the wounded men to
positions of relative safety from which they would be medically
(17:48):
evacuated from the battle position. Corporal Bennett repeatedly braved the
intense enemy fire, moving across open areas to give aid
and comfort to his wounded comrades. Valiantly exposed himself to
the heavy fire in order to retrieve the bodies of
several fallen personnel.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Then, as the whole platoon was awaiting for helicopters to
rescue the injured men, he spent the night outside the
safety of any kind of shelter, tending to wounded people
who couldn't be moved.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
On February eleventh, a similar event happened again when the
platoon came under sniper fire, and once again Bennett put
himself at risk repeatedly to try to aid the wounded,
including an attempt to save a fellow soldier who had
fallen ahead of the company's position. Even though he was
warned that the fallen soldier would be impossible to reach
given where he was in the amount of enemy fire,
(18:40):
Bennett tried anyway, and he was mortally wounded in the process.
He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on April
seventh of nineteen seventy, which would have been his twenty
third birthday. The third conscientious objector to be awarded the
Medal of Honor was Specialist for Joseph G. Lapointe Junior,
and there's not as much biographical inform that's publicly available
(19:01):
on him. Army records, though identified him as a Baptist.
On June second of nineteen sixty nine, the patrol he
was on fell under heavy enemy fire. He rendered aid
while under fire to two injured soldiers, and to do
so he had to crawl directly into the line of
sight of an enemy bunker. He resorted to shielding the
two fallen men with his own body, but all three
(19:24):
were killed by an enemy grenade. In addition to his
Medal of Honor, Lapointe was also posthumously awarded the Silver Star.
He was survived by his wife, Cindy, and his son,
also named Joseph, who was unfortunately born after his father's death.
And that's a little bit about conscience objection and conscientious objectors.
(19:50):
Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If
you'd like to send us a note, our email addresses
History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe
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wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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