Badass pacifist
He ultimately attained the rank of Colonel in the Tennessee State Guard, although most know him as Sergeant York for his highest rank at the end of World War I. While in his 50s, he also served in the Army Signal Corps during World War II and raised money for the Red Cross. York Foundation to increase educational opportunities in his homeland of Tennessee. In the end of the fierce firefight, 28 Germans had been killed by York, while York and his surviving men captured another 132 German prisoners of war. He managed to shoot all six of the Germans. When six German soldiers with bayonets charged him, he fired all the bullets left in his rifle before turning to his pistol to defend himself. Early on in the mission, the group of Americans lost six killed and three wounded resulting in York taking over command of the remaining seven in ferocious fighting. soldiers sent to infiltrate behind German lines in the hopes of neutralizing German machine guns. In the shootout, York faced overwhelming odds. I didn’t want to kill any more than I had to. I was sharp shooting… All the time I kept yelling at them to come down. There were over thirty of them in continuous action, and all I could do was touch the Germans off just as fast as I could. I didn’t have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush… As soon as the machine guns opened fire on me, I began to exchange shots with them. You never heard such a racket in all of your life. As he explains, “And those machine guns were spitting fire and cutting down the undergrowth all around me something awful. Our attack just faded out… And there we were, lying down, about halfway across and those German machine guns and big shells getting us hard.” Despite the desperate situation, York showed almost unparalleled bravery for an American during the war. Our boys just went down like the long grass before the mowing machine at home. Their machine guns were up there on the heights overlooking us and well hidden, and we couldn’t tell for certain where the terrible heavy fire was coming from… And I’m telling you they were shooting straight. York kept a diary of his combat career and so we shall let him tell us in his words what happened on that fateful day: “ The Germans got us, and they got us right smart. Of all the days of his service, Octowould prove the most famous as it was on that day that his actions earned him the Medal of Honor. With that, York subsequently fought with greater enthusiasm.
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To alleviate York’s concerns, his commanding officer cited various Biblical passages that seemed to justify violence under certain circumstances.
Early on in his service, York had a crisis of conscience between being a pacifist and a soldier in the 82nd Infantry Regiment. draft did not allow such exemptions at that time.
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As a young Christian man, he hoped to avoid serving in World War I as a conscientious objector. Digging DeeperĪlvin York was born in a log cabin in December 1887. York killed 28 German soldiers and captured 132 in France’s Argonne Forest during World War I making York one of America’s most decorated soldiers of the war. On October 8, 1918, United States Corporal Alvin C.