"When we get into combat, I'll kill you myself," a sergeant once told the lanky medic.  No one wanted a soldier who refused to carry a gun.  Twice his commander tried to have him court-martialed as unfit for service.  "conscientious objector...no!"  He would say.  He didn't object to service, only to killing.
     At Okinawa the Americans had taken the plateau above a high cliff when the enemy swarmed out in force from their hidden caves.  Overwhelmed, the Americans pulled back to the base of the cliff.  Above them remained only the wounded...and the Japanese.  Helpless to aid their wounded comrades above, they could only huddle beneath and listen to the cries and gun fire.  Then, something amazing happened.   From the top of the cliff a wounded soldier dangled from a rope.  At the top of the 400 foot Maeda Escarpment a lanky medic stood, heedless of the enemy all around him, to slowly lower first one, then another wounded man.  At the end of the day his commander said, "You saved a hundred lives today."
     "Impossible," the brave medic replied.  "Maybe fifty."  So when they wrote his Medal of Honor citation they split the difference, crediting him with saving 75 lives.
     "The bravest man I have ever met," his commander later said, "was the man I tried to have kicked out of the army."