“Hacksaw Ridge, this weekend’s new and poignant World War II film from director Mel Gibson, has been a long time coming. More than 70 years since those hellish days on the island of Okinawa, the courage and heroism of Desmond Doss, a Medal of Honor recipient who ran into combat and saved dozens of lives while refusing to ever lift a gun, has been mostly lost to the sands of time. This is in part because Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist, never felt comfortable sharing the story of his life to strangers—especially to those of the Hollywood variety, war movie icon Audie Murphy notwithstanding. Yet, near the very end of his life, his church was able to convince Doss to welcome the spotlight, illuminating how a man written off as “Conscientious Objector” by the Army became the pride and inspiration of his platoon in ‘45. Sadly, by the time Robert Schenkkan, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and screenwriter, was brought onboard to adapt the harrowing wartime trials and tribulations of Doss for the screen, Desmond was already on his way out, passing away in 2006. And it took Schenkkan, as well as producer Bill Mechanic, another decade to get that story on the screen.” To read more, click here.