Conscientious Cooperation

The LA Times has published an excellent obituary for Desmond Doss, the heroic "conscientious cooperator" of World War II:

"Desmond T. Doss was an unlikely World War II hero.

A conscientious objector who served as an Army medic in the Pacific, he was ridiculed and cursed in boot camp by fellow soldiers for refusing to carry a weapon.

Instead he carried a pocket-size Bible on Guam, Leyte and Okinawa and when not treating the wounded, the Seventh-day Adventist from Virginia would read Scripture.

But although his religious beliefs forbade his taking of lives, Doss did what he could to save the lives of comrades.

For his heroic actions on Okinawa, including braving heavy enemy fire to single-handedly rescue 75 wounded infantrymen and lower them one by one down a cliff to safety, he received the nation's highest military award — and he did it without ever firing a shot.

"What I did," he later said, "was a service of love." "

Read the whole story here.