Remembering Pvt. Eddie Slovik

I think you would be right about 70% of the time with that; which, coincidentally, is about what is represented.

 

This is where discipline really matters.

 

My Grandfather told me of seeing a man being led to a firing squad in WW1. 'I'll never forget that man's eyes' he said. I think we shot about 300 men(?) in the Great War. It was done 'To encourage the others'. My Grandfather and his comrades hated the army for doing it. It may have 'Encouraged' some but 'We stayed for our mates' he said. 'Couldn't leave a pal in the lurch'. Mind you he never liked authority much before 1914, post 1918 he positivly hated it!

 

Well that certainly changes things a bit, and puts the light on the subject from someone who has been there. Couldn't agree with you more on that one. Good man your Grandfather.

 

No I'd remember my dead friends, men that were good and worthy and then aim for a kneecap. Make sure he dies hard.

 

Years ago my Dad told me that he had shot one of his own Marines back in 1967. His unit was in the assault, they were receiving heavy fire and he could tell his troops were losing their momentum. It became a matter of who would break first, if his assault stalled and his Marines went to ground there was a good chance the NVA would have kept them pinned and chewed them up. He was pushing them forward, trying to close with the enemy, he saw one of his Marines break and run down the hill towards the rear. He tried to get him to stop, tried to order him to return to the fight. He knew if a rout started they were done, so he shot him with his .45. The Marines carried the enemy position and chewed them up as they attempted to fall back, virtually annihilating them. I don't know if he killed the guy, I never asked. I did ask if he felt guilty about it. He said, "Hell no, the SOB was a coward and if his panic had spread a lot of my Marines would have died."

 

Amen to that my good man-couldnt have said it better.

 

Your Father has my fullest respect, please tell him so if possible?

 

I forgot to mention it, but that salute is for your dad. He probably didn't have much of a problem with goldbrickers after that episode.

 

C.Evans wrote:

Thanks guys. I stop by and see him every couple days, I'll pass the word along.

 

I find it disturbing that a fellow citizen was deliberatly gunned down by your dad. If the soldier broke rank and ran because of a lack of training, its the marines fault, not his. If he ran because of lack of leadership, then its his officers fault not his. If he ran because he received wounds, then it sure as heck wasnt his fault.

Unless your dad had specific in writting authorization by superiors to allow him to shoot fellow citizens as he felt necessary, then I'd say your dad performed an extra-judicial execution. I would call it a war crime. Even Pvt Slovik got a courts martial. What your dad did sure is nothing to be proud of, nor should he even have admited it. In fact, it sounds eerily similar to what the communist political officers did in the red army.

 

That seems harsh. From the post I gathered that he was concerned about the possibility of a loss of unit disipline due to a desertion under fire. No one who was not there could really judge the event. As no charges were filed by any troops present I would conclude that they did not see it as a crime. At times commanders must call down fire on their own position, injuring or killing their own troops to save the remainder. I am sure no commander would relish the task of telling a parent that we killed your child to save the lives of someone's elses children.

There are times in battle, when you are given no good options, just some that are less bad then the others, and you are compelled to make a choice when you would rather not have to make one at all.

 

Maybe it didn't even happen. And even if it did, any officer who thought it necessary to shoot his men in the back without benefit of a courts martial was not representing his branch of service, his uniform nor the flag. That type of conduct belongs to our enemies who were wicked and cruel.

Call me old fashioned, but the constitution and the rights of soldiers do not end just because a junior officer decides they are inconvenient.

 

It has nothing to do with constitutionality. A commander/ leader of men on the battlefield has the authority to take whatever action he deems necessary at the time to protect unit discipline and accomplish the mission up to and including capital punishment.

Cowardice under fire is punishable by death.

Article 99 of the UCMJ:

 

Where does it say in artical 99 that a junior officer has the unilateral right to summarily execute an American citizen without benefit of a courts martial? Read it again. Executions are to be done after an courts martial.

What you're pretending to exist is just as evil and vile as what the Red Army commissars and the Waffen SS wrote into their own codes of conduct.

"It has nothing to do with constitutionality.". Yeah, you just keep on thinking that.

I think this story never happened. As the years go by, too many people will talk about things like this.

Some of you seem to have a blood lust about it. "Isn't it cool and respectfull" to shoot a fellow countryman who's only crime was he reached a breaking point. Yeah, really cool. You would fit in with some really notorious people.

 

"Punishable by death or whatever punishment a Court Martial deems appropriate" That means the use of deadly force is authorized to prevent the comission of acts specified in Article 99 of the UCMJ. You do grasp that right?
Deadly Force: That force wich is necessary to inflict great bodily injury or death.

 

You need to check yourself and your PMs

 

I find it disturbing that you would question a man's integrity and honor like you did here. The man was a combat commander, under direct fire, and he made the correct decision that had to be made in a split second or risk losing unit cohesiveness, which would result in losing many more lives of fellow Marines. Sometimes there is little difference in gaining successfully securing and holding an objective and being completely routed and driven from the field with staggering loses. Obviously the actions of Price's father in the incident in question saved the day and saved US lives. Have you ever served in any branch of the US Armed Forces, or served in law enforcement (which is a para-military organization) that required you to sacrifice your life for something or someone else? Without doing so you will never know what it is like to be in a life threatening situations that occur and end within split seconds, and having to make conscious decisions under such conditions.

In the military, and especially in combat, there are no citizens. I make mention of this because you classify the players in that scenario as citizens. They are fighting men, whether they be Marines (in this case), Navy, Air Force or Army. There is no democracy there either. It is near-autocratic rule, sometimes bordering on dictatorship, but that's the type of leadership needed in combat to achieve results resulting in the success of the mission and to provide the enemy the maximum opportunity to give his life for his country. No debating society, no voting, no board of directors, no HR, no EEOC, and no g0dd@m union reps. Orders given and orders carried out.

You also claim that it was the fault of the Marine Corps that the yellow SOB ran, that he wasn't trained properly, or wasn't inspired enough. Obviously you have never been in the Marine Corps, because even the most poorly trained Marine is an excellent warrior. Your questioning of the Marine Corps efficiency in training values is as flawed and lame as the typical liberal snot filled drivel about it's society's fault that causes criminal activity, not the poor criminal's fault. The young Marine in question that decided to run was a coward, and if he's still alive, he is still a coward. If I had been a private in that unit and witnessed him running and putting my buddies lives at risk, I would have dropped him like a bad habit myself. Then later, I would have made sure he was finished as to not see him go home and pollute the gene pool any further. But that's just me. And your statement that maybe he ran due to wounds received does not fly either. If he was well enough to step lively to the rear, he could have moved forward just as easy and offered to assist other wounded men. No excuse for cowardism, especially under fire.

What Price's dad, although tragic due to the fact that the coward in question decided to run, was commendable. He had to do it, he recognized it, and followed through. And you have the gaul and audacity to compare him to the NKVD. The NKVD shot deserters that they picked up behind the lines. It was a well known fact that if anyone deserted the Red Army, that they were subject to immediate execution on the spot by the NKVD. Even Uncle Joe said something to the effect of that it takes courage to be a coward in the Red Army as a result of their actions. Discipline is the only thing that makes an army different than rabble. Each county has their own level of maintaining discipline and order, and in the life and death struggle that the Rooskies were locked in, discipline was as harsh as the war. It had to be.

You called the man a war criminal. There are many words to describe you that I have in mind, but by referring to you as such in open forum here would be obscene and crude. I hope that you can imagine them on your own. It shouldn't be too hard.

I have never neg repped anyone yet, but today I will for the first time. Not that really means anything in real life, but it's the thought that counts.

Bobby