Skeptics Dismiss Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge as Overblown

Desmond atop Hacksaw Ridge

I watched Hacksaw Ridge again this afternoon and was blown away by the miracle of what Desmond Doss did that day. The man had angels at his shoulder. The picture to the left is of Desmond standing atop Hacksaw Ridge at the spot where he lowered 75 to 100 wounded men down off the escarpment. When they strung up the cargo net they used for climbing the cliff, Doss was one of three men who offered to test it by climbing up first. During the time alone at the top of the cliff that he lowered the wounded from with his double bowline knot that he learned in the Adventist Pathfinder club as a kid, Doss often stood erect as he worked while snipers tried to shoot him.

After the war, Doss toured Japan and after one speech a Japanese man approached him and told Doss he'd been a sniper on Hacksaw that day. "I tried to shoot you," he told Doss, "But my gun refused to fire. It had never done that before or after." Angels certainly stood at Desmond's shoulder that day.

As I was reading some YouTube reviews of the movie today, it was disheartening to see the way this movie was dismissed by know-it-all young people who kept calling the movie "unrealistic", overblown,  and exaggerated. They knowing claimed that Mel Gibson embellished Doss's heroism the way he did William Wallace's in Braveheart. It was hard to tell by some of the caustic comments whether they held a grudge against Gibson or against a religious man of principle like Doss being held up as a hero.

The truth is Gibson left out a lot of stuff Doss did that day because he thought no one would believe it. At the end where Doss kicked a hand grenade and was wounded was real. After the closing sequence of the movie where he was being lowered on a stretcher, a lot more happened that Gibson chose not to show because nobody would have believed it. 

On the way to the field hospital, Doss saw a wounded man he believed in more danger than he was and rolled off the litter and told the stretcher bearers to take the other guy. On the way to the hospital, Doss was wounded by sniper fire, dressed his own wound and crawled the rest of the way to the field hospital on his own. 

There are not many people who believe in that level of miracle anymore, nor do they believe a principled religious man could do anything that heroic without opening fire with a machine gun leaving a pile of bodies behind. The part of the movie that got to me was Doss carrying out another wounded man, praying out loud, "God help me get just one more!" 

Doss rescued 50 by his count, 100 by the count of the men at the bottom of the cliff and the compromise count of the medal of honor citation was 75. And you have to remember Doss had already won medals in two island campaigns and talked the medics corps into letting him go into battle with his unit instead of staying back at the field hospital. God only knows how many lives he saved.

It's sad that our young people feel such a powerful need to disparage acts of courage, faithfulness, unselfish love and honor. In our sad little world heroism is too often about acts of violence. Love is too often entirely about sex. Acts of mercy have ulterior motives and nothing decent gets done without someone asking, "What's in it for me?"

If you watch Hacksaw Ridge again, remember this. The man depicted in the film did more than what was shown in those couple of days on Okinawa and you're only being shown a part of the story and what you do see is the truth about this decent and brave man.

There are heroes out there folk that are real and don't wear capes and tights.

© 2021 by Tom King

Hooray, Hoorah! We've Got Democrats in Power Once Again!

So Biden has given us what now?

 

- Border crisis and more kids in cages.

- Sharp uptick in mass shootings

- More race riots

- Spike in crime rates

- More division

- Open suppression of free speech, assembly and the press.

- Banning of conservative voices from public media.

- Increasing crony capitalism between big corporations and the Democrat run government.

- Inflation and economic uncertainty.

- Theft of income from our grandkids due to horrific government overspending.

- Extension of mask mandates, business closures, small business failures, and personal bankruptcies

- A fake drop in CoVid deaths when WHO changed the testing standards the day Biden was inaugurated.

- We've rejoined WHO and the Paris Climate accords.

- We've bowed the knee to China.

- Russia is threatening to invade Ukraine (they need the wheat).

- China is threatening Taiwan (they just don't like the idea of Chinese people living in freedom).

- Threats to digitize money and force all to have a vaccine passport. (That's not going to end well since the software involved will be able to force people to obey government commands or they can't buy and sell).

- Increasing signs of senility in the president.

- Abandoning Afghanistan
- The fall of Afghanistan and helicopters on the embassy just like 'Nam

- An openly socialist VP. (Ah but she's black and she doesn't look black so that's okay by Joe)

- An ammunition supply shortage (tell me that's an accident).

- Gun control laws that violate the 2nd amendment.

- Attempts to federalize elections and prohibit state ID requirements for voting.

- Restocking of colonias with underpaid illegal alien workers (The big agribusiness corporations are very happy about that.

 

Oh, it's a beautiful day in America now that Democrats are back in charge!!!

 

See how great things are.........................................

 

 

 

 

© 2021 by Tom King

Mailbox Pirates - A CoVid Pandemic Phenomenon

Last Tuesday, thieves rifled our mailbox and stole Sheila's meds from our mailbox. I found the box empty with the door hanging open. They got two over-the-counter meds from Amazon and one prescription medication (a controlled med) from our pharmacist. Apparently, robbing mailboxes has become a new thing for the tweakers drifting down from Seattle to pillage seniors mail, given that so many are getting their meds by mail in these good old pandemic days.

We've had a lot of trouble with that in our neighborhood lately. People cruising the neighborhood engaging in porch piracy. It's about time we get ourselves organized in this neighborhood. Seniors are fleeing Seattle in droves. The overpriced housing authority senior apartment complexes are emptying out. The drug-addled homeless population can't get arrested anymore since the mayor went "woke" and defunded the police, the police chief quit and a whole bunch of cops retired after the CHAZ/CHOP debacle.

Looks like we're on our own in any case, what with Seattle leaking criminal drug addicts like the Johnstown Pennsylvania Dam. Their top 100 arrests in Seattle last year were every one a homeless drug addict. Probably gonna sit in a folding chair in the bushes for a few days with my high-power 22 caliber pellet air gun in case I need to light somebody up if they go after her meds again. My pellet gun is a wicked Chinese made thing that will blow a hole through a tin can full of water. It's got a scope and it'll leave a memorable subsonic impression on your backside. 

My great grandpa would've used a shotgun loaded with rock salt. I haven't owned a gun since I was 12 so I'm not tempted to react in such an impulsive way. My Irish-tempered family doesn't need a temptation to shoot ourselves or each other lying about the house. The pellet gun is for varmints. It takes about as long to load as a vintage muzzle loader, so it's not likely to be used impulsively. If someone tries to shoot someone else, he'll have to find the pellets, load it, and pump it up. By then, the rest of us will have time to sit on him.

It would, however, be entertaining to send one zinging past the ear of one of these slow-learners. I probably won't, but until Biden comes after my pellet gun it's an interesting thing to contemplate. Back in my old neighborhood here in Puyallup, we had a lot of soldiers, some of them Delta Force and a redneck from Texas who was good with a thirty-aught-six and liked to watch unfamiliar people wandering around the neighborhood through his scope.

How about we do a better job of watching our neighborhood, especially when we have a large number of seniors living here. Living as close as we do to Seattle, we need to remind ourselves occasionally that the former "Emerald City" has become something of a third world country under decades and decades of Democrat management? They've never had a Republican mayor. One of the city council members is a socialist. After the CHAZ and CHOP debacle, the resignation of their police chief and quitting of most of their best police officers, and the accumulating piles of human waste from the ever-growing drug addicted homeless population, Seattle seems to have sprung a leak; a stream of toxic humanity flowing out even out beyond the Seattle suburbs.

I find myself comparison shopping firearms these days, despite my history of working with the mentally ill and delinquents. I have always had this firm opposition to violence. Nowadays, however, as my family, my neighbors and my community are ever more under threat by the forces of evil, I do spend more and more time practicing shooting the eyes out of Pepsi cans full of water. I can drill a hole in and out of one from 100 yards.

© 2021 by Tom King