<P> Doss attended the Park Avenue Seventh - day Adventist Church school until the eighth grade, and subsequently found a job at the Lynchburg Lumber Company to support his family during the Great Depression . </P> <P> Before the outbreak of World War II, Doss was employed as a joiner at a shipyard in Newport News, Virginia . Doss entered military service, despite being offered a deferment for his shipyard work, on April 1, 1942, at Camp Lee, Virginia . He was sent to Fort Jackson in South Carolina for training with the reactivated 77th Infantry Division . Meanwhile, his brother Harold served aboard the USS Lindsey . </P> <P> Doss refused to kill an enemy soldier or carry a weapon into combat because of his personal beliefs as a Seventh - day Adventist . He consequently became a medic assigned to 2nd Platoon, B Company, 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division . </P> <P> While serving with his platoon in 1944 on Guam and the Philippines, he was awarded two Bronze Star Medals with a "V" device, for exceptional valor in aiding wounded soldiers under fire . During the Battle of Okinawa, he saved the lives of 75 wounded infantrymen atop the area known by the 96th Division as the Maeda Escarpment or Hacksaw Ridge . Doss was wounded four times in Okinawa, and was evacuated on May 21, 1945, aboard the USS Mercy . Doss suffered a left arm fracture from a sniper's bullet and at one point had seventeen pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body . He was subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Okinawa . </P>

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