The Battle of the Ridge

[Butch Acuna]

This film is a film adaptation of a true story of what could be the first conscientious objector who refused to bear arms for the United States during later part of WWll.
Due to his religious beliefs, the main character refused to bear arms but volunteered to serve as medical corpsman, due to his objection he was physically and mentally abused by fellow soldiers and was court martial led. The father of Doss ( real family name ) who was a retired soldier was able to solicit an order from commanding general of his son's army group for whom the elder Doss has served as an aide assigning the younger Doss to the medical corps. The elder Doss wore his former uniform and went to the opening court martial, which is restricted to active soldiers only bearing the order from the general. The elder Doss politely pleaded with head of of the court ( chairman ?) to to submit a document in behalf of the younger Doss to prove that the trial is not necessary, but the head of the court severely reprimanded the elder Doss and reminded him that only active soldiers are allowed to participate in the proceedings, whereupon the former soldier pointed to his medals including the highest award, " Do you mean that all the sacrifices I have done for my country are now useless, even just to deliver an order from the commanding general which is recommending the closure of this case? After a short pause, the head of the court, decided to receive the order and read the order assigning the younger to the Medical Corps without arms, rendering the trial moot and academic.
Doss's batallion was shipped to the Pacific Theatre of the war, just in time for the final stages of the Battle of Okinawa, the bloodiest battle fought by the Allied forces where they jointly sustained over 20,000 fatalities, mostly Americans.
As if to test the resolve of Doss not carry arms to protect himself his group was assigned to the bloodiest event in Battle of Okinawa, called The Battle of the Ridge, where allied soldiers has to scale a high ridge in order attack the Japanese soldiers hiding in caves and tunnels. Over three hundred ships and hundreds of planes fired thousands of tons of high explosives into the target area in preparation for the attack, to no avail, The Japanese soldiers merely waited out the bombardment inside tunnels and caves unscathed, when the order to attack was given, Japanese soldiers fought back more fiercely and were able to drive back the Americans near the edge of the ridge where they entrenched for the night, during the first night, Doss went back to the battle sight to rescue wounded American soldiers, the next days battle was more ferocious, this time the Americans were forced to retreat below the ridge before nightfall, Doss stayed behind during the night and rescued over twenty wounded American soldiers and some Japanese under the cover of darkness, lowering them down by the use of a rope.
The third day was to be the final battle, before they embarked, the ground commander asked Doss to pray for them, while he was praying the Allied Commander-in-Chief called by radio inquiring what is holding back the attack, " Sir we are waiting for Doss to finish praying for all of us " As soon as Doss finished praying, the battle commander called for the commencement of naval and aerial bombardment, again the top of the ridge was rained with high explosives, with each naval gun expending a projectile costing about the same price as a luxury car. Thousands of tons of explosives hit the target with minimum effect to the enemy.
As the attackers approached the area occupied by enemy a white appeared from the mouth of a tunnel, they are surrendering! But as, the Americans surrounded the surrenderees, a group of die hards brought out grenades with pins removed and threw them towards the Americans, at this point, Doss caught one grenade and picked up another throwing it back towards the Japanese and exploded at the tunnel entrance, surviving Enemy soldiers surrendered. Doss died at an old age on 2006 in his home.
A true story generating more excitement and inspiration than wild imagination can muster.

A four out of four.