How a North County boy became the first U.S. military officer ever to be convicted of treason Martin James Monti went off to World War IIâand wound up an officer in an elite unit of the Nazisâ Waffen-SS. JANUARY 26, 1948 Sergeant Martin James Monti steps off a plane at Mitchel Field on Long Island. With customary ceremony, he is presented with an honorable discharge. Minutes later, federal agents clad in their own uniformâdark suits, white shirts, skinny tiesâapproach. Monti is taken into custody. Cameras flash, capturing his strong jaw and finely carved features. He is only 23, but his childish softness is long gone. He stands a lean 6-foot-2, his hair wavy and dark against skin made even paler by the flashbulbs. As a teenager in North St. Louis County, he probably drew more admiring glances than he bothered to notice. Quiet, intelligent, and serious, he had no time for frivolity. His mind was consumed with serious ideas, and his convictions were rigid and unshakable. They knotted faith, politics, economics, and ideology into a worldview so vehemently opposed to communism that he deserted his country to join the Nazis.