Friday, October 12, 2007
This Day in the History of Important Awards
On this day in 1945, Corporal Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia, was presented the Medal of Honor by President Truman for outstanding bravery as a medic, during the conquest of Okinawa earlier that year. Doss was a pacifist based on his religion, 7th Day Adventist, and refused therefore to kill or carry a weapon, but he served as a medic and was brave, brave, brave. He saved at least a dozen lives at the extreme risk of his own, and despite multiple wounds, including a compound fracture of his arm he bound to the broken stock of a rifle. Doss was the first conscientious objector to win the Medal of Honor. I can't find out if he was the last as well.
I know a lot of divisional patches from WWII but I haven't a clue what Division he was in, although Wikipedia says he was in the 77th. If they insist. The shape and colors are right, but I can't see a statue of liberty. Doss died in 2006 in Alabama.
Labels: WWII history; Pacific theater
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 9:55 AM 
