Free Republic

World War II veteran Nick Gozik says that the bravest soldier he encountered during two years of combat was the one he saw executed for desertion. That soldier proved to be the only one of more than 20,000 convicted deserters during that war to suffer the death penalty. The last deserter to be executed had been during the Civil War. There have been no others.

By Oliver Prichard Inquirer Staff Writer On the morning of Jan. 31, 1945, in the French Alsatian village of St. Marie aux Mines, a U.S. Army private in Pennsylvania's 28th Infantry Division was marched into a snowy courtyard, strapped to a post, and shrouded with a black hood. A general recited the soldier's crimes. A priest gave last rites. A dozen men took a position 20 paces from the accused, leveled their M-1 rifles, and fired. As the volley spattered blood and flesh, the slight body convulsed, stiffened, and made a last lurch upward. Death was pronounced even as the...