Stardate 20020627.1607

(On Screen): Donald Sensing, an ordained minister who served in the artillery, says that he has had discussions with many men who claimed to be pacifists and has concluded that they were all actually cowards.

It has certainly been the case that most of the antiwar rhetoric out there has been confined to pious aphorisms such as the ones he's quoted, plus many more which are equally contemptible. And, as he points out, when they are pressed to describe what we should do instead they tend to be woefully absent of specific practical ideas.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Many principled pacifists are uncommonly brave men. In World War II, many Quakers and others who refused to bear arms nonetheless enlisted and became medics. As any soldier can tell you, being a frontline medic is not the safest job on the battlefield, and many of them died while trying to save their fellows.

They supported their nation, they wanted to serve, but refused to pull triggers and refused to kill. But there are many ways to serve, and these men were willing to take great risks to their own lives and health to serve the nation they loved and their fellow soldiers.

Probably the most remarkable was Private First Class Desmond T. Doss. He was a devout Seventh Day Adventist who enlisted in the Army to become a medic. He refused all weapons training, and because of that, and his refusal to train on Saturdays, and his constant Bible reading and prayer he was the subject of quite severe hazing and outright hostility from the other men in his unit and even from his officers.

But that all ended once his unit entered combat and he proceeded to demonstrate his uncommon valor. He had already rescued several wounded men from hopeless situations in previous actions when his company assaulted an escarpment held by the Japanese. As they took the top, they were subjected to extremely severe artillery, mortar and machine gun fire and forced to retreat, leaving about a hundred casualties behind.

Doss remained behind and proceeded to rescue man after man, lowering each in turn down the cliff by rope. After five hours alone under enemy fire, he finally came down himself. Nobody knows how many men he actually saved. The official number is 75, but it may have been more. The lowest estimate, 50, was Doss's own. But even if it had only been one it would have been astonishing bravery.

What Private Doss (and all the other pacifist medics who went to war) proved is that there is a difference between a man who says, "I won't go to war" and a man who says, "I won't fight."