The Medal of Honor of Desmond Doss (& MUCH MUCH MORE!!!) | History Traveler 98

there are several different reasons why i like history but really one of them is just the human stories i love hearing stories about ordinary people who are put in extraordinary circumstances and do extraordinary things and really whenever you look i i don't think you see any better example of that than in the stories of those who have been awarded the medal of honor well today i'm in chattanooga tennessee and there's a museum that opened up here earlier this year that i am so excited to get in uh i am at the national medal of honor heritage center like i said right here in chattanooga tennessee there are several different things in this museum that i have heard about one of which is i think the medal of honor for desmond doss so anyway we're going to go ahead and go inside the national medal of honor heritage center right here in chattanooga tennessee extremely excited [Music] my [Music] all right we just got into the medal of honor heritage center here in chattanooga and the first room that you walk into holy smokes um you can tell that they did not skimp on this place um this is pretty amazing there's there's a lot that went into this so yeah i'm going to kind of look around and explore and see what we got here so i've learned something already that i didn't know before during the revolutionary war george washington had something that he designed called the badge of military merit which was awarded for meritorious action and it was a heart on a purple silk cloth that would be worn you can see a replica here on the left and i guess that kind of became the model for the the purple heart that we have now which is awarded to soldiers uh who were wounded in combat but i guess that was kind of like the the forerunner to the medal of honor interesting look at this thing this is an original facsimile so it's an original copy of the declaration of independence so even though it was a this is a copy it it is an original copy um so a lot of these signers including thomas jefferson saw this and and uh kind of signed off on it and endorsed it for the exactness to the original document that is cool now we've talked about andrews raiders on a few other videos and the origins of the medal of honor well here is what the original medals of honor would have looked like huh we have a whole lot of museum to look at but i have pretty much got stuck in this first room this place is so amazing so take a look at this this is a giant interactive touch screen that is essentially a digital record of every single medal of honor that has ever been awarded as well as the location and story of you know the action that took place that uh warranted the the awarding of that medal let me show you how this works because it is really cool so let's say we're over here in the pacific theater and we want to go in to say okinawa well there were two medals of honor that were awarded on the north part of the island seven here nine here so we can zoom in a little bit further oops hit that and now you can see all of the recipients on this part of okinawa which of course includes desmond doss hit that and then it pulls up information on dos i'm telling you i could literally spend the rest of my day right here that is amazing here's another interactive display that they have here where you can essentially look through this giant database and they have a bunch of different filters so for example let's say i want to look up all of the metals of honor in vietnam now it filters through and i can you know run it by name there's all kinds of different filters that they have here where you can learn about these men and what they did holy cow this is one of the most impressive things i've ever seen in a museum very very cool i've never heard this quote by lincoln before a nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure that's what this place is all about okay well i finally pulled myself out of that first interactive room and now we're in the main part of the museum and of course in a museum dedicated to the medal of honor well you have to start off talking about the origins so this is a display talking about andrews raiders who went behind enemy lines during the civil war stole a confederate train called the general and uh that was a big shanty outside of marietta and they made it all the way up to the ring gold gap almost made it to chattanooga and it was it was for that act of bravery that uh that these men were awarded the very first medal of honor now as you're making your way through this museum uh they they kind of advance through history so the the medal of honor of course started in the civil war and here's one thing that uh people may not know is that in the civil war we have something pretty interesting with the metal the only woman to have ever been awarded the medal of honor was a nurse by the name of mary walker now i'm not going to go into a deep dive on mary walker but i would highly encourage people to to come here and to learn more about her in short she was a graduate from medical school and when the civil war started um was denied you know the the role of a doctor because she was a woman and instead enlisted as a nurse she was at bull run and was at fredericksburg was at the battle of chickamauga i was taken as a prisoner of war she was an abolitionist this was an incredible woman and she is the only female in u.s history to have been awarded the medal of honor pretty amazing here's something else that i love that they've done here um they've taken the six core values of the medal of honor and as you advance through the museum well you go into these little rotundas and they'll have video of a medal of honor recipient talking about one of those core values so this one is on patriotism as we move from the civil war they start talking about the medal of honor in the indian wars and also the spanish-american war so this is a display for a gentleman by the name of george jordan who was awarded the medal of honor he was buffalo soldier was awarded the medal of honor in the indian wars and then they also have a thing about the spanish-american war there's old teddy roosevelt my favorite president who uh really thought that he deserved the medal of honor for his actions at san juan hill so uh teddy roosevelt known for a lot of good things um i don't know if humility would be up there but anyway uh he thought he deserved it but didn't get it but his son did okay moving into the next value citizenship so this is actively participating in our democracy and in our community courage so definitely a hallmark value of the medal of honor and right here at the courage display they have a thing about alvin york who was a sergeant in world war one and was awarded the medal of honor for uh taking a machine gun nest along with four officers 128 men bunch of guns so uh reading about alvin york you'll be amazed at uh at what he accomplished became kind of a celebrity of sorts after the war and then they have a few world war one displays you know some few guns and uniforms very interesting [Music] okay well i am seeing a lot and i am learning a lot but i'll have to admit there was one primary reason why i wanted to come here today and that was for this right here this is the medal of honor of desmond doss look at this nowhere else are you going to be able to go where you can see the actual uniform that belonged to private desmond doss and here it is wow they also have this poster in the background of the ten commandments of course doss was heavily influenced by the sixth commandment which said thou shalt not kill led to him becoming a conscientious objector in world war ii wouldn't handle a weapon they also have this charm bracelet that was given to his wife dorothy on the show this is your life all those charms feature you know different things associated with with their story and look at this if you remember from the movie if you saw the movie hacksaw ridge doss's father was an alcoholic and kind of a violent man and during a family fight this revolver was hidden by desmond doss and he was so impacted by it all that he vowed he would never touch another firearm again and this is the actual gun they also have the backpack and entrenching tool that belong to dos but above it all look at this this is the medal of honor that was awarded to private desmond doss for his actions on hacksaw ridge in the battle of okinawa where he the citation says that he saved 75 lives he said it was less uh his his men said that it was more so they they compromised at 75 which is stunning look i can't i don't even have the words right now so amazing that they have all of this here [Music] so [Music] look at this as you move through this hallway from one section to another they have just this big wall of names of all these heroic people who have been awarded the medal of honor oh including audie murphy that's neat that's that's a cool touch integrity so being honest keeping your word and doing what's right even whenever no one is watching and here in this section this is dedicated to the namesake of this place charles coolidge who was awarded the medal of honor in france in 1944 and take a look at this here is the medal of honor that was awarded to charles coolidge gosh i love that they have this stuff here for people to see you really need to be paying attention whenever you come to this museum because they're just details everywhere like for example i almost passed this up this is the uniform that belonged to coolidge and you can see in addition to the medal of honor looks like he was also awarded a silver star and a bronze star wow sacrifice it's appropriate that here in this section of sacrifice we've moved into the korean conflict and here they tell the story of a guy named ray duke who in short was a sergeant in the 24th infantry division and there were some men that were were cut off and he organized a small group to go in and get them long story short he was injured or wounded three times and stayed behind and held off the the oncoming enemy while his his men could withdraw he was taken prisoner and died in captivity but anyway here is his medal of honor and you might see another medal there above it this is the tygook cordon of the order of military merit this is kind of like the south korean medal of honor and both were awarded to sergeant ray duke [Music] so okay we're moving now into the vietnam war section and this this is a nice touch they've set this up to look like a a 1960s era living room with different scenes playing on these tvs from the the vietnam war era yeah that that is a really nice touch to kind of bring people into the history a little bit oh wow and if you look at this i just noticed this beyond this wallpaper you can kind of see these huey helicopters taking off man there's just all kinds of details in this museum commitment so as we move into the commitment section here you can see they have the medal of honor for a man by the name of mitchell stout so you can look his story up and then we wrap up with the war on terror and in this section they focus on the story of a marine by the name of kyle carpenter who just beyond belief uh threw his body on a grenade absorbed the blast and survived and if i'm not mistaken is the youngest man to ever have been awarded the medal of honor he has a book that's really good and i've listened to his story on a few different podcasts and just an amazing humble guy but you can come here and and learn more about his story all right so we're kind of towards the end of our walk through the museum here and this is a display honoring the life of arthur macarthur whom we've talked about before the battle of franklin he was awarded the medal of honor for his actions at the battle of missionary ridge which is not too far from here and then they have of course the six core values of the medal of honor this has been quite the place okay so that was the the main exhibit here at the medal of honor heritage center and they also have an area where they have like a rotating display and i feel fortunate to to be here while this display is here we talked a little bit about mary walker earlier take a look at this so this is a recreation of a self-made uniform that mary walker designed of course women at the time had to wear skirts that can be a little bit difficult on the battlefield so she designed one that had pants with a skirt over the top of it now this is not a reproduction this is the real deal this is the medical case that was owned and used by dr mary walker whenever she was serving in the civil war there's a few pictures of mary walker but look at this here on display is mary walker's medal of honor this is on loan from the pentagon and if i'm not mistaken this is the only other place that it has ever been displayed but not only do they have the metal they also have the case and then here they have just tons of information where you can learn about the life and service of mary walker [Music] [Music] that was seriously amazing um what they have done with this place uh really has to be experienced i think it would do all of us good to to come to places like this and learn about the men and the woman who have been awarded the medal of honor and see what we can take away from it ourselves things like courage integrity patriotism sacrifice uh things that that will not only make us better but will make us as a nation and the community better so uh yeah if you're ever in chattanooga definitely come to this place the national medal of honor heritage center i thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed my time here today [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 86,409

Rating: 4.9910212 out of 5

Keywords: history, history traveler, history travel, desmond doss, wwii, wwi, world war II, ww2, medal of honor, hacksaw ridge, battle of okinawa, war, andrew's raiders, chattanooga, tennessee, things to do in chattanooga, jd huitt, medal of honor heritage center, history channel

Id: tG28QRDh_jE

Length: 23min 54sec (1434 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 01 2020