Conviction, Courage and Devotion 65 Years Ago
First reported by me at the 60 year anniversary here.
Cpl Desmond T. Doss performed in combat at the level that earned a Congressional Medal of Honor.
Today, I’ll complete my connection to this event, which occurred 47 or 48 years ago. I noted in the May 2005 posting this bit of personal connection:
Somewhere in a box, I have a picture. It is three elementary school children and a blonde German Shepard-Elkhound mix puppy standing next to a monument. The picture was taken in 1962 or 63, and it is my two sisters and I, and our dog, Scooter.
I had forgotten, until my older sister found and scanned the long lost family photo, that our Okinawan neighbor had accompanied us into the sugar cane fields that day.
Click for the full sized image
It was here my father told us a story of a heroic act by a man who had vowed to never kill, yet he would serve his fellow man by ensuring he entered combat, as a medic. Obviously, the story stuck with me, but it was not until about a month before 5/5/2005, that the basic details came pouring back into my head. I searched the net and found I had time to create the post and do it justice. Along the way, I read of a man who not only held to his convictions that day, but since he had been a young boy, and then until (while not at the time) to the day he died in March 2007.
Rather than repeat myself, if you’re so inclined, chase this link to all I have posted about a hero I came to admire from afar.
Categories: Army, History, Leadership, Military, Military History
What a wonderful story. Thanks s much for posing this. Having the courage of one’s convictions is not an easy thing, especially in this “modern” era.
I can cotton on to this story as my own father was a Navy Corpsman assigned to the Marines in the Pacific.
All of them have a courage and sense of duty that I can only stand in are of, and salute.
God Bless them all.
by AW1 Tim on May 7, 2010 at 6:45 pm