Madam, - Six months after emigrating to the US in November 1961, I received a notice from "Uncle Sam", through the local draft board, to report for duty at an induction centre in Brooklyn, New York. My instinct was to go home to Ireland, but having neither the wherewithal to return, nor any prospects on a small farm in the West of Ireland, I felt I had no choice but to comply.
Days later I was inducted, sworn to "pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America" given a uniform and sent off to Fort Dix, New Jersey for basic training. I served six years with the US army engineers during the "Cuban Crisis" and the early years of the Vietnam War before being discharged in 1968.
I may have wished, as Sarsfield did, "that this were for Ireland", but it wasn't; and at no time did I consider myself to be an Irish soldier. How could I? I agree with Séamus Ua Trodd (September 11th) that he was an Irish soldier. But I was not.
The Irish nation afforded neither me, nor my fellow countrymen in the American army, any recognition - nor did we ask for any! We were cannon fodder for empire, nothing more.
The notion that Irishmen in the British army, either now or in the past, deserve special attention because they claim to be Irish soldiers or to serve Ireland, is preposterous.
As a nation we have broken the physical chains of the British Empire that bound us; decolonisation of the mind may yet take some time. - Yours, etc,
JOE McGOWAN, Mullaghmore, Co Sligo.