I was initially intending to write an extensive introduction for this. Beginning with my musings on the occurrence that made me aware of how terribly wrong, how utterly useless and immoral, I felt capital punishment to be. (It was 1953, I'd recently turned 13, and the papers were headline screaming the news that the US Government had executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage, courtesy of the electric chair in New York's Sing Sing prison. The following year I read the first of Caryl Chessman's four books, Cell 2455, Death Row, and my repulsion for the death penalty grew in strength. By the time the state of California legally murdered Chessman in 1960, my views had crystallized. All I additionally needed was to thoroughly educate myself on the matter. Which I set about doing with an open mind. What I subsequently learned absolutely reinforced my feelings.) I then thought to continue by describing in vivid detail the public execution—by a 5-man naval firing squad—that I witnessed in the south of Thailand in late 1971. (It's not a pretty sight.
