Andrew Garfield, foreground, stars as Desmond Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist who refused to touch a weapon, much less kill anyone during World War II. As a medic, he managed to get 75 wounded soldiers to safety in one 12-hour stretch of battle.
President Harry S. Truman presented Desmond T. Doss with the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1945. Doss moved to Rising Fawn, Ga., in 1951 and lived out most of the remainder of his life there.It might have been just another role for Vince Vaughn, but in his latest feature film, “Hacksaw Ridge,” the actor felt compelled to defend his character’s character, almost as if he himself had been offended.
His reaction, in a way, speaks to the heart of the new movie from director Mel Gibson. “Hacksaw Ridge” tells the true story of Army Medic Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who earned a Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in World War II. Doss lived in Rising Fawn, Ga., from 1951 until just before his death in 2006.
During the war, his fellow enlisted men beat him, cursed him, questioned his courage and shunned him because of his conscientious objector status and because his Seventh-day Adventist beliefs meant he would not fight or kill anyone, nor work on Saturday, the Sabbath.
Vaughn plays Sergeant Howell, one of the many men who questioned Doss’s religious convictions, his courage and his honesty.
“Well, it stands to reason that men would question a man who wouldn’t touch a gun ever,” says Vaughn in a telephone interview to promote the film. “I don’t think most people would want to be in a foxhole with a man who won’t be able to protect himself or you.”