Date: 02 Oct 06 - 03:12 AM


"While not wanting to stir things up I have to say that I think most in my grandparents' generation would have assigned one of the two descriptions in the post title to a deserter. SNIP

While you personally may not like the descriptions, with what information we have available about MacColl's desertion I'm sure there are many that would think them appropriate."

If those of your grandparents' generation would have passed such harsh judgement on a case that they know little or nothing about, that's one thing; perhaps their own hard experiences gave them some moral right to jump to conclusions, but that's them and their experiences, it's not ours. Furthermore, passing those kinds of knee-jerk judgements in the privacy of one's home is one thing; would they have been so quick to blazen them around the world? As for that, my own father fought in WWII and his father in WWI, and I never heard the words "coward", "traitor" or "deserter" uttered in our home (in judgement of any common soldiers), but I did on a number of occasions hear sympathy expressed for those accused of various types of aberrant behaviour under war conditions.

I have no opinion about MacColl one way or the other, but it's quite clear from the posts that no one on this thread knows much about the circumstances of his desertion, or extended AWOL, therefore I cannot understand why they would feel it appropriate to publicly besmirch his memory with the crass insinuations of the thread's title.