During World War one, 306 solders were executed for cowardice and desertion, 23 of whom, were Canadian. Inflicting such punishment upon these men was outrageous. For one, most of these "men" were not men at all. They were boys. Many of them had lied about their age simply to come in aid to their country, thinking it was the proper and loyal thing to do. Second, these men had no legal representation or chance to explain or defend their actions. Lastly, most of the soldiers had gone through weeks, even months of war before committing these so-called "crimes". After seeing the things those men saw, most of us would be traumatized for the rest of our days. Many of the soldiers were volunteers. They volunteered to fight for their country and got executed because they could not handle it anymore. Without a doubt, no one could have done anything so terrible to deserve such punishment. .
Loyalty and courage are one thing, but naivety is another. And naivety is the only thing that could have possessed these boys to join the forces. "The Canadian Expeditionary Force, like the British Expeditionary Force, had a lot of underage soldiers. There were thousands of them on the Western Front, really, there were. My uncle was one of them at 16." Those words spoken by John Hipkin prove that young boys were being sent off to fight for their country. They did not know the seriousness of what they were getting themselves into. But, who could have known unless they had been before? They could not have known how bad the conditions were. The boys that lied about their age to join the forces were young, and did not necessarily know what exactly what they were going to be expected to do and see. It is unfair to have taken their lives after they volunteered to do a loyal and heroic thing for their country. The majority of them left because they could not handle what they were going through. At 15, 16, 17 years of age, you do not have the maturity and understanding of a 20-25 year old man.