Desmond Doss: Myths and heroes

A hero can be an ordinary man that has done extraordinary things during his life. A hero is a person who is admired, and this admiration can push us to become better. Each of us has a different definition of a hero. I chose Desmond Doss, an American soldier whose life was the subject of a movie, Hacksaw Ridge.

Desmond Doss spent his youth in Lynchburg, a little town in Virginia. His family has raised him as a devout Seventh-day Adventist; his religion took an important place in his life and he followed several principles like the non-violence (“You will not kill !”).

The young Desmond entered the American army as a volunteer to defend his country. He cannot use a gun or even take it in his hands. This caused him many problems before his departure to the war because he was considered as unable because he didn’t trained with weapons. He persisted in his willing to participate to the war effort and as a consequence he was engaged as a nurse and was sent to Japan.

Desmond took part in the Battle of Guam in 1944 and he became famous the following year. Desmond saved approximately 75 men in Okinawa, by descending them one by one from a cliff to the beach from which the injured soldiers were treated. This scene represents a symbolic moment of the movie.

It represents his legendary bravery, and this behaviour was considered as madness by some of the soldiers. Desmond explained that to motivate himself he prayed untiringly: "God, help me to save one more".

There are many narratives about him as the treatment of 4 men in a strongly defended cave and in advancing through a shower of grenades. Or when an American was severely wounded by fire, Doss crawled to 25 feet from the enemy position and carried him.

Refusing to leave the battlefield, Desmond Doss was seriously injured. He had an injury on his legs and his arm was broken. He was injured three times during the war, so he got three “Purple hearts” (medals).

The President Harry Truman himself decorated Desmond Doss the 12th of October 1945 and celebrated "his extraordinary bravery and determination in the face of danger".

During a long time Desmond refused that his life would be a subject of a movie, but he was seduced by the vision of the

director Bill Mechanic who proposes promoting the bravery and the non-violence of Desmond as an example for the young people. Very modestly, he characterized his story as the one: “of a man in the hell of war strengthened in his convictions”. Why this man is a hero for me? Because he defended his country risking his life, he respected his principles against all odds. In this period of religious tensions, he is an extraordinary example in which religion can make a man good.

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