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Friday, February 1, 2008

I had meant to note that yesterday marked 63 years since the execution of Pvt. Eddie Slovik. I thought I'd take the opportunity delve back into the archives and re-run the essay I wrote on the subject a little over three years ago - 12/23/04. Here it is:

Sixty years ago today, Dwight Eisenhower confirmed the death sentence of Private Eddie Slovik, making him the only American executed for desertion during World War 2, and the first since the American Civil War for same. There have been none since.

Eddie Slovik was a ne'er-do-well. He was involved in petty-theft, breaking and entering and disturbing the peace. He spent time in reform school for stealing candy, cigarettes and some cash from the drug-store he worked at. After reform school, he went back to prison for auto-theft.

In 1942 he got a job, got married and appeared to be settling down. 4-F in the draft due to his prison record, it looked like maybe the settled life would continue for Eddie Slovik.

His luck didn't last. Due to manpower shortages and the need for replacements, his draft status was re-classified 1-A at the end of 1943 and he was inducted into the US Army. Bad timing for a guy who had trouble following society's rules. Two things worked against Slovik - he was familiar with prison life and running afoul of the law...and he didn't want to fight.

He reportedly didn't want anything to do with guns and had to be walked through grenade training by his instructors.

When he got to France, he "became separated" from his replacement group making their way to join the 28th Division at the front and spent about six weeks with a Canadian Rifle Company before being turned over by them to officers of the 28th. He was gone again within hours, turning himself in to the authorities in Belgium.

A lot of guys would have been afraid to desert. They would have feared the label of dishonor and the possible jail consequences. But not Eddie Slovik. A guy who'd been in and out of jail as he had wasn't afraid of consequences, and certainly not of being labeled by society as "dishonorable." During training, he had written to his wife:

You are sick darling, but what am I going to do? Oh, darling, I don't know what to do to be with you again. I am so dam sick and tired of this place. I feel like going AWOL. I'm sorry I didn't go to jail for six months, then I know you could come to see me anytime you wanted to.

During the war, 21,049 soldiers were sentenced for desertion, 49 of them to death. Only Slovik was executed. He was the wrong guy, making the wrong choices at the wrong time.

He signed a confession in which he insisted that he would leave again if forced to go back. He was offered, to the last moment, the chance to avoid trial if he'd just re-join his unit. He opted for trial, assuming he'd be sent to prison. He assumed wrong.

At the time of his final desertion, the problem of men leaving their posts, or suffering from self-inflicted wounds to avoid combat was a growing one in Europe. The 28th was about to engage in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest - a meat-grinder of a debacle in which many, many boys who did not do as Slovik did found their end. The quantity of mercy for a guy brazenly looking for the "easy" way out was becoming decidedly thin.

He was sentenced to death by a military court. The trial took an hour and forty minutes. The sentence was decided by secret ballot and voted on three times. It was a unanimous decision at each vote.

More bad timing for Slovik. By the time his final appeal came before Eisenhower, sixty years ago today, the Battle of the Bulge was in full swing, and thousands of young men who had stayed to fight were being overrun and mowed-down. According to Stephen Ambrose, "Eisenhower never backed away from his decision. He thought the case about as clear-cut as one could get."

As it was. At first they thought they might have trouble finding a firing-squad. They need not have worried. According to two of the soldiers who performed the duty:

Two members of the firing squad later summarized what many front-line soldiers thought about the execution of Eddie Slovik. One reportedly declared: "I got no sympathy for the sonofabitch! He deserted us, didn't he? He didn't give a damn how many of us got the hell shot out of us, why should we care for him?" The other soldier said, "I personally figured that Slovik was a no-good, and that what he had done was as bad as murder."

He was executed on January 31 and buried, along with 94 other American Soldiers in a special, secret cemetery in France set aside for those shot for rape and murder. Graves were marked only with numbers - no names. His wife spent the rest of her life trying to clear his name, but to no avail. Not until 1987 did an interested party finally succeed in having his remains removed and placed next to Slovik's wife in their final resting place in a Michigan cemetery.

The reason I bring this up, though, is to point out the basic decency of America when compared to our enemies - even an America at war. Ambrose points out:

...whatever the merits, it helps put the Slovik execution in some perspective to mention that during the course of the eleven-month campaign in Northwest Europe, when Eisenhower had one deserter put to death, Hitler had 50,000 executed for desertion or cowardice.

Imagine the difference in character between an army that 's cold enough to reward failure and human frailty routinely with death, and one that agonizes over the fate of one trooper. Why would men, treated mercilessly themselves, treat occupied people any better? It's no wonder that the Germans who looked to surrender ran west instead of east - Stalin treating his men hardly better than Hitler treated his.

After all, how could an army that fails to recognize the humanity in its own, be expected to recognize it in anyone else? And that is, in the end, another of democracy's strengths, a source of democratic nations' basic goodness - each individual and their family is recognized as possessing value - an individual that serves by consent of himself in cooperation with his fellows. No dictator could ever hope to have as strong a fighting force...or one that fights as humanely.

Today our armed forces agonize over whether every single soldier has the proper body-armor and safe vehicles. Our own forces investigate their own abuses, worry over whether a hood over a dangerous prisoner is a violation of their rights, an enlisted man can publicly question the Secretary of Defense and not fear retribution and it takes them over a year to bring a soldier accused of murdering his fellows to trial.

Our enemies recruit children, care nothing of whether they slaughter their fellow Arabs and Muslims nor how many innocents they murder and aspire to suicide as the only sure way of meeting God.

To whom will nations turn?

Sources:

History Channel

The Execution of Pvt. Eddie Slovik

Eddie Slovik

The Sad Story of Private Eddie Slovik

Wikipedia: Eddie Slovik

Cemetery Project

Citizen Soldiers - Criminals and Deserters

3 Comments

Good read Solomon. If I thought like a Democrat, which I don't, I would say it was "quite nuanced".

The issue of "goodness" is the background noise that seems to determine the side I take in any argument.

This paragraph of your essay is particularly well put, if I may say:

"After all, how could an army that fails to recognize the humanity in its own, be expected to recognize it in anyone else? And that is, in the end, another of democracy's strengths, a source of democratic nations' basic goodness - each individual and their family is recognized as possessing value - an individual that serves by consent of himself in cooperation with his fellows. No dictator could ever hope to have as strong a fighting force...or one that fights as humanely."

In a lot of heated debates I've had with the many knee-jerk anti-Americans who skulk around my city (Sydney) I've been known to ask them -

"If the USA could be replaced tomorrow as the world dominant superpower what country would you choose to replace it?"

Whatever the answer they give this concept of "goodness" comes into play. You are right to speak of "democratic nations' basic goodness", but those nations can, and should, be graded as well.

I've yet to have anyone put a convincing argument to me that there is a better substitute to fill the boots of the USA. By far the most common responses I get are either an anti American rant
or the stare of a mullet that's just been stunned.

Simply, warts and all, the USA has no serious rival for the job.

I'm surprised that only one deserter was executed by the USA in WWII and I think it is a telling fact.

As a now age 84 WWII Infantry Replacement Rifleman into Germany in 1945 (The worst job in the Army), I think poor dumb Eddie's murder conspiracy on the part of the top brass was the US Army's most shameful official act.. There were real deserters in the Paris black market who really deserved execution. Why didn't they get one of them? They were right there in Paris along with SHAEF headquarters.. Punishment should be based on what the perpetrator actually did, not done as a possible deterrent to someone else!

God Bless you Mr. Drake. You were one of those who saved the World by defeating the nazi menace.

What do you think of the US and the World today?

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