Alvin York’s first and most difficult battle was fought not on the battlefield, but in his own mind and soul, as he struggled to reconcile his firm belief that God did not want him to deliberately set out to kill another human being with his equally strong belief that it was his duty to defend his country. After numerous late night talks with his officers, Captain Danforth and Major Buxton, in which they searched the Bible for scriptures pertaining to the subject, Alvin was finally satisfied that taking up the sword against his country’s enemy would be permissible to his God. Once this decision was made, York threw himself wholeheartedly into serving his country. (Bronte).
As a result of this decision, the United States army gained one of…show more content… York explains, “I had no time nohow to do nothing but watch them-there German machine gunners and give them the best I had. Every time I seed a German I jes teched him off.” York compared it to shooting back home in his Tennessee shooting matches, but thought the targets back home were much smaller. These targets were so big that there was no way he could miss them. He explained that every time he saw a head come up, he shot it. He never heard or saw any of the men from his platoon during this time. He just kept watching for German heads and shooting them one after another.…show more content… A German major, having seen the way York took on the six soldiers with bayonets, agreed to stop the fighting. He whistled to his men in a signal to surrender, and the Americans lined up the almost 100 prisoners for the trip back to the American Lines. Using the German prisoners as shields, the Americans traveled back through the German lines, picking up more prisoners along the way. By the time they made it back to their own lines, they had a total of 132 prisoners. When the commanding officer counted the prisoners, he asked, “York, have you captured the whole German army?”
