Curtis Revels knew he was bound for military service one way or the other when he turned 18 in 1944, so he went ahead and signed up. Well, he tried to.
“When I turned 18, to avoid the draft, I went and tried to join the Navy,” Revels said. “But they said I was colorblind and had flat feet, so they wouldn’t take me.”
He heard from the Army soon after. “I was drafted into the Army infantry,” Revels said. “They told me, ‘We’ll give you some shoes to fit those flat feet.'”
The young man from the tiny town of Rutherfordton, North Carolina, was bound for Okinawa, the site of the Battle at Hacksaw Ridge. Revels was a machine gunner in the aftermath of one of the last and bloodiest battles in the Pacific during World War II.
“My stay wasn’t long there, but long enough to learn what fighting for my life was like,” Revels said. “We were there three weeks. It felt longer than that. You didn’t make friends. You were fighting all the time. If you were pulled back off the line, you were trying to rest or trying to get something to eat.”