Two fellow Medal of Honor recipients were among more than 500 people who paid their last respects to World War II hero Desmond T. Doss Sr. this afternoon at the Chattanooga National Cemetery.
Mr. Doss, the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor, influenced people across the country with his story of how he saved the lives of dozens of soldiers during a battle on Okinawa by lowering them off a 400-foot cliff by rope.
The revered Seventh-day Adventist who refused to carry a weapon during wartime died last month at age 87 in Piedmont, Ala.
Mr. Doss's American flag-draped casket arrived at the cemetery's pavilion in a horse-drawn carriage. Veterans saluted the casket, while other admirers shot pictures with their cameras.
Dozens of Pathfinders, an Adventist youth club similar to the Boy Scouts, lined up on either side as eight military servicemen carried the coffin under a stone archway to the pavilion.
Chattanooga resident Charles Coolidge and Joe Marm of Fremont, N.C., both Medal of Honor recipients, attended the funeral.
Brigadier General Carl E. Levi, Hamilton County trustee and a family friend, delivered welcoming remarks, and four National Guard helicopters flew over the service.
See tomorrow's Chattanooga Times Free Press for full coverage.
Mr. Doss, the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor, influenced people across the country with his story of how he saved the lives of dozens of soldiers during a battle on Okinawa by lowering them off a 400-foot cliff by rope.
The revered Seventh-day Adventist who refused to carry a weapon during wartime died last month at age 87 in Piedmont, Ala.
Mr. Doss's American flag-draped casket arrived at the cemetery's pavilion in a horse-drawn carriage. Veterans saluted the casket, while other admirers shot pictures with their cameras.
Dozens of Pathfinders, an Adventist youth club similar to the Boy Scouts, lined up on either side as eight military servicemen carried the coffin under a stone archway to the pavilion.
Chattanooga resident Charles Coolidge and Joe Marm of Fremont, N.C., both Medal of Honor recipients, attended the funeral.
Brigadier General Carl E. Levi, Hamilton County trustee and a family friend, delivered welcoming remarks, and four National Guard helicopters flew over the service.
See tomorrow's Chattanooga Times Free Press for full coverage.
