One thing to chose not to fight for whatever reason you may care to mention. It is a completely different thing to enlist then desert and you must admit that if you are going to desert from the Army in time of war and go on the run a change of name might come in handy as well as adopting a "Scottish" accent and claiming to all and sundry that you are a native of Auchterarder in Perthshire as opposed to Salford Manchester.