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The sound of 11 rifles firing simultaneously.

A single volley.

Then silence.

January 31st, 1945.

A small French village called S Marie Omin.

Snow covers the ground.

The sky is gray.

In a courtyard surrounded by stone walls, a man in an American uniform slumps against a wooden post.

His hands are tied behind his back.

A black hood covers his face.

11 soldiers stand 20 ft away, their rifles still smoking.

The man’s name is Eddie Slovic.

He is 24 years old.

And in exactly 15 minutes, a doctor will pronounce him dead.

He is the only American soldier executed for cowardice since the Civil War.

To understand how Eddie Slovic ended up against that post, you have to go back three months back to October 1944.

Back to the mud and blood of the Herkan forest, where the American army was learning just how hard it would be to break into Germany.

The 28th Infantry Division had been mauled.

In 3 weeks, they had lost 6,000 men.

The survivors were hollowedeyed, trembling, finished.

Replacements were arriving every day, fresh young men who had never heard a shot fired in anger.

They looked at the veterans and saw something they did not want to become.

Eddie Slovic was one of those replacements.

He arrived in France in August 1944.

A former car thief from Detroit with a prison record and a wife waiting back home.

He had been parrolled into the army because the war needed bodies.

He never wanted to be there.

He never pretended otherwise.

For weeks he stayed in the rear working as a cook, avoiding the front.

Then in early October, his replacement draft was ordered forward.

The 28th division needed men.

Slovic was going to the line.

He never made it.

During an artillery barrage, Slovic [snorts] and another soldier became separated from their company.

They wandered for days, eating from Krations, sleeping in barns.

Finally, they ran into a Canadian military police unit.

The Canadians fed them and sent them to an American supply depot.

For 6 weeks, Slovic stayed in the rear.

He cooked meals.

He did odd jobs.

He avoided the war.

On October 7th, a military policeman stopped him, asked for his papers.

Slovic had none.

The MP looked at him.

Dirty uniform, empty eyes.

a man who had not been near a rifle in weeks.

“Where is your unit?” the MP asked.

“I don’t know,” Slovic said.

The MP nodded.

He had seen this before.

The war was full of men who got lost, who drifted, who tried to disappear.

Most of them, when caught, just went back to their units.

A few days of company punishment, extra duty, and it was forgotten.

The MP did not know Eddie Slovic yet.

Part two choice.

October 8th, 1944.

The headquarters of the 28th Infantry Division.

Slovic stands before his new company commander, Captain Ralph Grot.

Grot is a combat veteran.

He has seen men die.

He has seen men break.

He knows what fear looks like.

and he knows what a deserter looks like.

Slovic looks like a deserter.

Where have you been? Grot asks.

I got lost, Slovic says.

For 6 weeks.

Yes, sir.

Grot size.

He has a war to fight.

He does not have time for this.

All right, Slovic, you’re assigned to company G.

Report to your platoon sergeant.

Slovic does not move.

Sir, he says, I have to tell you something.

Grot waits.

I’m not going to fight.

Slovic says, I’m too scared.

I’ll run again.

Grot stares at him.

He has never heard a man say this.

Men are afraid.

Men break.

Men run.

But they never say it out loud.

They never admit it.

You can’t do that, Grot says.

You’ll be caught marshaled.

I know, Slovic says, but I’m telling you now.

I’ll run again.

I can’t help it.

Grot doesn’t know what to do.

He orders Slovic to a rear area and tells him to think about it.

Think about what? Slovic asks.

I already know what I am.

That night, Slovic sits down with a piece of paper.

He writes a confession.

He writes it by hand in pencil.

His words simple and direct.

I, Private Eddie D.

Slovic, confess to desertion.

I came to this company on October 8th, 1944.

I told Captain Grot that I was too scared to fight.

He told me to go to the rear and think about it.

But I have thought about it.

I am too scared.

I will run again if I am sent to the front.

I know what this means.

I am ready to accept the consequences.

He signs it.

The next day, a lieutenant reads the confession.

He tells Slovic to tear it up.

Forget it.

Go back to your unit.

No one will know.

Slovic refuses.

If I go to the front, he says, I’ll run.

I’m telling you now, I’ll run.

The lieutenant tries again.

Eddie, listen to me.

If you don’t tear this up, you will be caught marshaled.

You could be shot.

Slovic looks at him.

I know, he says, but I’m not going to fight.

The confession goes up the chain of command.

It reaches the division commander, Major General Norman Cota.

Cota is a legend, one of the first generals on Omaha Beach, a man who walked through machine gun fire like it was rain.

He reads Slovic’s confession and shakes his head.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” he asks.

His staff has no answer.

The court marshall is held on November 11th, 1944.

It lasts two hours.

Slovic does not fight the charges.

He does not ask for mercy.

He simply stands there and listens.

The prosecutor reads the confession.

Slovic’s own words spoken and written.

The court asks if he has anything to say.

No, Slovic says, “I already said it.

” The panel deliberates for 15 minutes.

The sentence death by firing squad.

Slovic does not react.

He expected this.

He has been expecting it since the day he wrote the confession.

After the trial, his defense attorney tells him not to worry.

No one has been executed for desertion since the Civil War.

The sentence will be commuted.

He’ll serve some time, maybe 10 years, and go home.

Slovic nods.

He wants to believe it.

But in his cell that night, he writes another letter.

this one to his wife.

Antuinette, I want you to know that I love you.

I made a choice.

I knew what would happen.

But I couldn’t pretend anymore.

I couldn’t be something I’m not.

They will probably tell you I was a coward.

Maybe I was.

But I was honest.

I told them the truth.

That has to count for something.

Part three.

Consequence.

The months pass.

Slovic waits in a French prison, watching the war move east without him.

The Battle of the Bulge comes and goes.

Thousands die.

The Allies push toward Germany.

And still no decision on his sentence.

His lawyers appeal.

The appeals are denied.

His case reaches Eisenhower’s headquarters.

Eisenhower’s staff reviews it.

They recommend approval.

On January 23rd, 1945, Eisenhower signs the order.

Eddie Slovic will die.

The execution is set for January 31st.

The night before, a Catholic priest visits Slovic.

They talk for hours.

Slovic does not cry.

He does not beg.

He asks only one thing.

That his wife never be told the details.

That she remember him as something other than a man tied to a post.

The priest promises.

Morning comes.

Slovic eats breakfast.

He smokes a cigarette.

He writes one last letter, short and simple.

Antuinette, this is the end.

I want you to know I love you.

Take care of yourself.

Don’t hate anyone for this.

I made my choice.

At 10:04 a.

m.

, they lead him into the courtyard.

Snow covers the ground.

The sky is gray.

11 soldiers stand 20 ft away, their rifles loaded, one with a blank so no one knows who fired the fatal shot.

A hood is placed over Slovic’s head.

His hands are tied behind him.

He is strapped to the post.

The officer in charge reads the charges, the sentence, the approval from Eisenhower.

He asks if Slovic has any last words from beneath the hood.

A muffled voice.

They’re not shooting me for deserting.

They’re shooting me for being a nobody.

Just a guy from Michigan who was scared.

The officer nods.

The rifles rise.

Fire.

Slovic slumps.

The doctor checks his pulse.

Nothing.

15 minutes later, he is officially pronounced dead.

He is 24 years old.

The army buried Slovic in a cemetery for American war dead, but not with the others.

His grave was unmarked, separate, forgotten.

In 1949, his body was exumed and returned to Michigan.

He was buried again, this time in a Detroit cemetery, his name on a stone.

His widow, Antuinette, fought for the rest of her life to clear his name.

She wrote letters to presidents.

She gave interviews.

She never remarried.

Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan all refused to pardon Slovik.

The army stood by its decision.

He was a deserter.

He admitted it.

The law was clear, but the question never died.

Was Slovic a coward or was he just honest? He told them the truth.

He told them he couldn’t do it.

He told them he would run.

And when they gave him chances to tear up the confession, to go back to his unit to pretend it never happened, he refused.

He chose honesty, and honesty killed him.

80 years later, historians still argue.

Some say he was a coward who deserved what he got.

Others say he was a scapegoat, a nobody sacrificed to make an example.

A few say he was the bravest man in the division because he admitted what everyone else was too afraid to say.

What do you think? What would you have done standing in that muddy field in Belgium, knowing you were too scared to fight? Would you have lied? Would you have pretended? Would you have gone forward and died like so many others with your fear hidden behind a brave face? Eddie Slovic couldn’t do that.

He could only be what he was.