Towards the end of the war the government also introduced an amendment to the legislation to exclude those who had deserted to Britain from any publicly funded employment. This was a deliberate decision to punish those who had run away to battle not from battle, the normal reason for desertion, according to Dr T. F. O' Higgins in the Dail. Though the government made its case that it had to punish those who deserted, the fact that they isolated this one group and introduced special legislation to punish it suggests that vindictiveness was one of the motives behind this. In addition the government wanted to avoid embarrassing court cases involving individuals who had fought all over Europe and even been in prisoner of war camps which would highlight the extent of both volunteering and desertion. This vindictiveness was extended beyond deserters to include those who had volunteered for the Allied cause. At the end of the war American troops visiting Dublin were permitted to wear their uniforms but Eire citizens returning home were not. In November 1945 the government banned the annual British Legion commemoration march to the Garden of Rememberance on public order grounds. This decision was fiercely criticized by Jmaes Dillon in the Dail, who argued forcibly that the government had withdrawn the protection of the constitution from one section of the population. The grounds for the ban were weak and it is likely that the government simply did not want a show of pro-British sentiment on the streets of the capital so soon after the war. While the government and its supporters were prepared to use the volunteers in a self-interested and cynical fashion to repair the country's image with the United States during and after the war, they were less interested in recognizing the actions of their own citizens in fighting against Adolf Hitler and fascism. This confirms not only the indifference of the Irish government to the outcome of the war, but also its continuing unease about the significant minority in Eire, which considered its responsibilities extended beyond the island's shores. Larry O' Sullivan had gone to war to ' fight for civilization against dark ages. ' As a sailor he was sunk three times during the war, once off Norway, then Dunkirk and finally in the Java Sea where he was captured by the Japanese and spent three years in a prisoner of war camp. Such was his treatment that he believes that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan saved his and his comrades' lives. For others who visited the death camps in Europe in 1945 the enormity of what had been at stake during the war became apparent for the first time. For many Irish men and women who joined the battle there was a sense of disappointment that the Irish neutrality which they often defended could be used to ignore what THEY HAD ACHIEVED. Brian Girvin.