Today in history

December 23

1944
General Dwight Eisenhower endorsed the finding of a court-martial in the case of Eddie Slovik, who was tried for desertion, and authorized his execution, the first such sentence against a U.S. Army soldier since the Civil War, and the only man so punished during World War II.

Slovik made no secret of his unwillingness to enter combat, but his pleas to be reassigned to noncombat status were rejected.
Eisenhower ordered that Slovik’s execution be carried out to avoid further desertions in the late stages of the war.

1947
President Truman pardons 1,523 of 15, 805 WWII draft resisters.

1961
James Davis of Livingston, Tennessee, was killed by the Viet Cong, and becomes the first of some 55,000 U.S. soldiers killed during the Vietnam War.
Lyndon Johnson later referred to him as “the first American to fall in defense of our freedom in Vietnam.”
Over two million Vietnamese would die before the end of the war.

Lyndon Johnson told the nation
Have no fear of escalation
I am trying everyone to please
Though it isn’t really war
We’re sending fifty thousand more
To help save Vietnam from Vietnamese

~ anti war demo chant