Part
2 in a Series on Persistence
His rope-burned hands were bleeding now, but he couldn’t let go. The
weight on the line felt heavier with each passing moment, threatening to pull
him right over the edge of the cliff, still he held tight. Lowering his burden
little by little.
His position on the edge of the cliff was completely exposed to enemy
fire. A hundred yards away a Japanese soldier had Doss in his sights. Taking a
deep breath, Doss’ opponent squeezed the trigger. Clink! For the third
time in a row the gun jammed.
Finally, the rope went slack as the weight of his fellow soldier was taken
by the ground, three-hundred and some feet below. Doss knelt. With the sound of
gunshots ringing in the distance, his head resting on blood-saturated ground,
he prayed.
“Please, Lord, help me get one more!”
Crouched low and often crawling, Doss made his way across the darkened
battlefield once again. Bodies littered the ground and he stopped at each one –
checking for, hoping for, life.
How I Came to Write about Private Doss
This series on persistence, may be the hardest set of articles I’ve set
out to write yet. I have to admit that I found myself sitting at my computer
and feeling altogether stumped once again. This time with Part 2 - an article I
had already put hours into.
But, if at first you don’t succeed try, try again, right? That seems to
be the lesson of this series for me. It’s a good rule to follow, but sometimes
a little redirection can also be helpful and this time around I have my
siblings to thank for coming to my aid…
My sister couldn’t help but laugh a little when she heard that I was
ready to give up on yet another article about persistence. Her recommendation
was that I write about Desmond Doss, a private who served in the U.S. Army
during WW2 and who was awarded the Medal of Honour for rescuing fellow soldiers
at the risk of his own life.
“He’s the most persistent man who ever lived.” I believe is what she
said.
The problem was, I wasn’t in need of an example. I’d already put hours
into an article telling the story of another persistent man. I just needed to
finish with the application, to find a way of tying it all together.
But when my brother came along a few minutes later and made the same
suggestion, I figured the idea might be worth looking into. Perhaps I did need
a fresh start - some fresh inspiration. So, my next few hours were spent - not
writing - but researching. Being inspired by a man who truly walked persistence
out.
Now, I’m super excited to be sharing a bit of his story with you!
The Persistent Hero
Desmond Doss.
A young man from Virginia, who enlisted to serve in World War 2. Doss
was actually drafted but, he was given the opportunity to be exempted from
service, due to his position at a shipyard, and turned it down. He believed
that he needed to fight for his country.
A Seventh Day Adventist, he also believed that it was wrong to kill.
Holding strictly to the fifth commandment, Doss refused to use or even touch a
rifle. A conviction that got him into no end of trouble during his military
training and eventually got him classified as a ‘conscientious objector’. Doss
didn’t think this title was accurate, as he
believed the war was justified but that killing was nevertheless wrong. He
considered himself more accurately described as a ‘conscientious cooperator.’
Doss was deployed as an unarmed medic with the 77th
division. Which was sent first to Guam, then to Leyte in the Philippines, and
finally joined an allied invasion of Okinawa - an island three hundred and
forty miles south of Japan. It was for his role in this final conflict that
Doss was later awarded the Medal of Honour by President Truman himself.
The famous battle against the Japanese was fought
at the top of the Maeda Escarpment (which the soldiers dubbed Hacksaw Ridge due
to the terrible carnage that took place there). The American troops ascended
the three-hundred-and-fifty-foot cliff by means of cargo nets that Doss and two
fellow soldiers secured. At the top, they were faced with a nearly impenetrable
battlefield. A piece of land that was heavily entrenched with enemies and already strewn with the dead bodies of hundreds of other American soldiers.
“The Japanese had been there for years, they had
that mountain honeycombed and camouflaged, it looked like natural terrain.
That's what we had to face." – Desmond Doss
One hundred and fifty-five men of the 77th
division scaled the Maeda Escarpment, of which Doss was one. Only fifty-five of
those were able to climb back down when the troop was ordered to retreat.
Though he wasn’t injured, Desmond Doss ignored the order and remained on the
battlefield with the numerous casualties.
"I had these men up there and I shouldn't
leave 'em, they were my buddies, some of the men had families, and they trust
me. I didn't feel like I should value my life above my buddy's, so I decided to
stay with them and take care of as many of them as I could. I didn't know how I
was gonna do it." – Desmond Doss
As night fell, Doss began to rescue the
injured. With nothing but a rope and his own strength, he lowered one soldier
at a time down the three-hundred-and-fifty-foot cliff. He worked all night,
often under enemy fire.
A Japanese soldier later recalled having Doss
in his sights multiple times, but every time he went to fire on the exposed
medic his gun jammed. Doss attributed his survival and the success of his
rescue mission to God, saying:
"When you have explosions and bursts so
close you can practically feel it, and you’re not wounded. When I should
have been killed a number of times. I know who I owe my life to as well as my
men. That's why I like to tell this story to the glory of God, because I know
from the human standpoint, I should not be here."
After each individual rescue, Desmond paused to
pray that God would help him save another.
"I just kept prayin', 'Lord, please help me
get more and more, one more, until there was none left, and I'm the last one
down.'" – Desmond Doss
That night on Hacksaw Ridge, Doss saved the lives
of approximately seventy-five men!
A Shared Objective
The story of Desmond Doss didn’t stop there. He continued to demonstrate
courage, selflessness, and persistence in the battles of Okinawa. He was badly
injured in service. Later he came home to a proud family and a proud country.
In the essence of time, I’ll have to leave those stories for you to look up for
yourself but, before we finish, let me ask you this:
Do you go after men like Desmond Doss did?
Desmond Doss isn’t just an example of persistence. He persistently
sought to rescue men. An objective that you and I, as Christians, are supposed
to share.
In Part 1 of this series, we looked at
what persistence is and found that true persistence requires motivation. In other
words, to persist well you need a reason to persist.
Private Doss had a reason. He was determined to save the lives of as
many of his men as he possibly could. Though death surrounded him. Though he
was a prime target for the enemy. Though the task demanded every ounce of his
physical, mental, and emotional strength, he persisted. You see, Doss knew he
was in a battle but he also knew just what he was fighting for.
We are in a battle too, but we often forget that fact. We also have been
charged with the mission of saving lives, but we don’t seem to take it as
seriously as Private Doss did. We seem to be missing both the motivation and
the persistence!
The gospel is our primary tool for saving lives, yet none of us
appear to be very eager to use it. We don’t like to witness. We don’t like to
look silly or to endanger our reputations. So instead of refusing to retreat
like Private Doss, instead of praying that we won’t have to leave any
casualties behind, we’re standing at the cliff’s edge wishing we could just
climb down.
Christians, we are the medics in this war, the rescue agents, but we
aren’t doing our job!
We may share the gospel - once in a while and generally only if
opportunity is placed right in our laps. To us the good news is an obligation,
something we are required to speak of out of Christian duty. We don’t know what
it is to persistently seek after men’s souls. To earnestly pray that the Lord
would give us just one more. Rather we are all too ready to check ‘share the
gospel’ off of our spiritual to do list and be able to say we met the Christian
requirement.
Desmond Doss wasn’t like us. He stayed on Hacksaw
Ridge by choice while the rest of his troop descended to safety. He willingly
crawled through a bloody, body-strewn field again and again because he couldn’t
bear the thought of leaving someone behind. He loved his fellow soldiers and
spent every ounce of his strength on their behalf. It wasn’t a pleasurable task
- the rope cut into his hands, his whole body was covered in dirt and other
men’s blood, and while he lay on that cliff’s edge lowering men to safety his
own life was placed in danger. But Doss wasn’t content to do anything less
than rescue every man that was in his power to save.
Why are we content with less than that?
Jesus said that He alone is the means of salvation. Do we believe that?
Do we really believe that those who do not have faith in Christ are going to
Hell?
I’ll admit that it’s not a nice fact to think about but it is an
important one to remember. Because if we forget that we are trying to save
lives, we lose our motivation to persist.
Let’s learn some persistence and not give up on the
men and women who are stranded on our own Hacksaw Ridge!
In
Christ
quiana
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