When Private Eddie Slovik was executed on January 31,1945, he became the only American put to death for desertion since Lincoln was President. After his death he became the subject of a book that sold in the millions, numerous magazine articles, a television special, a play or two, and several public campaigns that made his case an issue and still keep it alive.
I saw Eddie Slovik for most of one morning, no more, and he never said a word to me. I cannot say for certain whether it is his face I remember or a photograph in a magazine article based on William Bradford Huie’s best seller The Execution of Private Slovik. But I sat on Slovik’s court-martial, as one of the nine officer-judges who unanimously voted the death penalty.
In August of 1944 Eddie Slovik was a twenty-four-year-old replacement trucked up one day in a group assigned to an infantry line company in France. Encountering shellbursts and heavy fire for the first time, he knew at once that he could never make it on the line. With a buddy he hid out, and on the following day they turned themselves in to Canadian military police who were passing through. Not under arrest, they made themselves generally useful for the next six weeks, until the Canadians returned them to American military control on October 5.
