Cowardice In Combat

The made-for-tv movie The Execution of Private Slovik – based on the true story of Eddie Slovik, the only American soldier executed for desertion during WWII – aired 40 years ago last month. Chris Walsh considers the film’s success in 1974 and ponders why today “cowardice in the military is a topic too obscure and tender for nonmilitary Americans to contemplate”:

We are willing to have other people’s children put themselves in harm’s way, but we feel both ignorant and guilty about it, and that is enough to keep us from presuming to criticize, much less punish, a deserter. Reflecting on the alleged cowardice of a soldier like Slovik leads to disturbing questions: What would we do in his place? Why haven’t we joined the fight, or more actively supported those who do — or, alternatively, joined in the debate about whether fighting is the right thing? Why did we leave Iraq in such a mess, and is it as big as the mess we left in Vietnam? Bigger? Why did we invade in the first place? Did we really go to Afghanistan to get Bin Laden (who of course was killed independently of the war)? Why are we leaving there now? Is what has been called the cult of national security itself a symptom of cowardice? The prospect of executing a deserter is even more disturbing. Would you have hit Slovik’s heart?