One More From the Ridge

On May 5, 1945, Private First Class Desmond Doss stood atop a jagged escarpment on Okinawa that soldiers had grimly nicknamed Hacksaw Ridge. His company had been thrown back by withering Japanese fire, and dozens of wounded Americans lay bleeding on the plateau above. Most men would have retreated to safety with the others. Doss, a combat medic who refused to carry a weapon, crawled back over the edge.

For twelve hours through the night, under sniper fire and mortar blasts, Doss dragged one broken body after another to the cliff's edge and lowered them on a rope litter to the medics below. Each time exhaustion and terror told him to stop, he whispered the same prayer: "Lord, please let me get just one more."

One more. Not the masses. Not a number. One more man with a name, a mother, a life hanging by a thread.

By dawn, Doss had single-handedly rescued seventy-five soldiers — one at a time.

Jesus told the Pharisees about a shepherd who left ninety-nine safe sheep on the hillside to chase after one trembling straggler lost in the ravines. The heart of God is not a corporate calculation weighing acceptable losses. It is Desmond Doss on that ridge — battered, relentless, refusing to quit — whispering over every wandering soul, "Just one more." And when that one is found, all of heaven erupts in celebration.