From Conscientious Objector To War Hero

From Conscientious Objector To War Hero

The more he drank, the rowdier he became.

LIFE ON the farm in 1887 was tough in Fentress County, Tennessee, where a boy named Alvin York was born. His father, William, needed to farm, hunt, and blacksmith to support a family that eventually included eleven children.

Alvin worked with his father on the farm. He especially enjoyed hunting with him and became a crack shot at an early age. But in 1911 Alvin’s father died from a kick by a mule, leaving Alvin as chief provider for the family since his two older brothers had already moved away.

Floundering under the responsibility of caring for his family, Alvin began drinking the local moonshine. The more he drank, the rowdier he became, often ending his evenings in bloody fights. After every binge he would stumble home to his mother’s two-room cabin where night after night she faithfully prayed for him.

One night about midnight when Alvin lurched home from a night of drinking and fighting, his mother plaintively asked him, “When are you going to be a man like your father and grandfather?”

She had nagged him for years about his drunkenness but had never before compared him to his father and grandfather. Neither of them had drunk, and both were legendary for their fairness and honesty.

His mother’s words made Alvin suddenly realize that his life was hopeless and that all he deserved was God’s wrath. Of that moment he later said, “God just took ahold of my life. My little old mother had been praying for me for so long, and I guess the Lord finally decided to answer her.” He fell to his knees and shed tears of repentance in his mother’s lap. As his tears turned to joy, he said, “Mother, I promise you tonight that I will never drink again as long as I live. I will never smoke or chew again. I will never gamble again. I will never cuss or fight again. I will live the life God wants me to live.” It was the wee hours of New Year’s Day, 1915, the dawn of a new day for Alvin York.

At the next revival at a nearby church, Alvin York walked down the aisle and to his neighbors’ amazement publicly dedicated his life to God. He soon became an elder and song leader in his church.

Things were going well for Alvin until in 1917 the United States declared war on Germany. Joining the army was the last thing that York wanted to do because his church opposed war as a violation of the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” Then he received a notice requiring him to register with his draft board, the head of which was his pastor. He was in a quandary as was his pastor. He applied to be a conscientious objector but was turned down. He had no choice but to go to war.

On September 26, 1918, the battle for the Argonne Forest began. The great achievement of the battle, in fact the greatest single military achievement of the war, was performed by a corporal from Tennessee named Alvin York. As a member of a patrol sent to silence a group of German machine-gun nests, York personally killed more than twenty Germans and took 132 prisoners all by himself. He forced a German major to order all his soldiers to surrender. It all took place within three hours and fifteen minutes.

That night after recounting the day’s events in his diary, he wrote, “So you can see here in this case of mine where God helped me out. I had bin living for God and working in the church some time before I came to the army. So I am a witness to the fact that God did help me out of that hard battle; for the bushes were shot up all around me, and I never got a scratch.”

For his heroism Corporal York, soon to be Sergeant York, received the Congressional Medal of Honor. General Pershing called him “the greatest civilian soldier of the war.”

Reflection

Was it just coincidence that a Christian won this amazing personal victory? Do you think that Alvin York would have accomplished this feat if he had not become a Christian? Why or why not?

The horses are prepared for battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.

Proverbs 21:31