warning: Spoilers in the comment.
I don't agree with those who try to cast Slovik's case as some kind of brave act of civil disobedience. It certainly was not. Slovik was expecting the same leniency as other deserters received before him; and when he realized his case was really going end up in execution, it was too late.
However it confirmed my conviction, that no American citizen should be forced to fight for the sake of an Allied country. It maybe sometimes reasonable for a country under attack, in a middle of an existential threat, to conscript able-bodied men against their will, and execute them if they refuse to fight; because there is no room to retreat, it is fight or die. However, neither Slovik nor million other non-volunteer US conscripts were a French or Belgian citizens. It was not their moral obligation to fight and die in Europe. Of course, U.S. did the right thing to intervene; and it should have sent all the volunteers she could muster. However a moral line was crossed when young men were conscripted against their will at the threat of jail punishment; and another line was crossed, when one of them was executed for refusing.
I don't agree with those who try to cast Slovik's case as some kind of brave act of civil disobedience. It certainly was not. Slovik was expecting the same leniency as other deserters received before him; and when he realized his case was really going end up in execution, it was too late.
However it confirmed my conviction, that no American citizen should be forced to fight for the sake of an Allied country. It maybe sometimes reasonable for a country under attack, in a middle of an existential threat, to conscript able-bodied men against their will, and execute them if they refuse to fight; because there is no room to retreat, it is fight or die. However, neither Slovik nor million other non-volunteer US conscripts were a French or Belgian citizens. It was not their moral obligation to fight and die in Europe. Of course, U.S. did the right thing to intervene; and it should have sent all the volunteers she could muster. However a moral line was crossed when young men were conscripted against their will at the threat of jail punishment; and another line was crossed, when one of them was executed for refusing.