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| Fewer troops desert since 9/11 |
| 2006-03-07 |
| At least 8,000 members of the all-volunteer U.S. military have deserted since the Iraq war began, Pentagon records show, although the overall desertion rate has plunged since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Since fall 2003, 4,387 Army soldiers, 3,454 Navy sailors and 82 Air Force personnel have deserted. The Marine Corps does not track the number of desertions each year but listed 1,455 Marines in desertion status last September, the end of fiscal 2005, says Capt. Jay Delarosa, a Marine Corps spokesman. Desertion records are kept by fiscal year, so there are no figures from the beginning of the war in March 2003 until that fall. Some lawyers who represent deserters say the war in Iraq is driving more soldiers to question their service and that the Pentagon is cracking down on deserters to discourage anti-war sentiment. “The last thing (Pentagon officials) want is for people to think … that this is like Vietnam,” says Tod Ensign, head of Citizen Soldier, an anti-war group that offers legal aid to deserters. Desertion numbers have dropped since 9/11. The Army, Navy and Air Force reported 7,978 desertions in 2001, compared with 3,456 in 2005. The Marines showed 1,603 deserters in 2001. That declined by 148 in 2005. The desertion rate was much higher during the Vietnam era. The Army saw a high of 33,094 deserters in 1971 — 3.4% of the Army force. But there was a draft and the active-duty force was 2.7 million. Desertions in 2005 represent 0.24% of the 1.4 million U.S. forces. Opposition to the war prompts a small fraction of desertions, says Army spokeswoman Maj. Elizabeth Robbins. “People always desert, and most do it because they don't adapt well to the military,” she says. The majority of desertions happen inside the USA, Robbins says. There is only one known case of desertion in Iraq. Most deserters return without coercion. Commander Randy Lescault, spokesman for the Naval Personnel Command, says that between 2001 and 2005, 58% of Navy deserters walked back in. Of the rest, most are apprehended during traffic stops. Penalties range from other-than-honorable discharges to death for desertion during wartime. |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #5 "That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse; We would not die in that man's company That fears his fellowship to die with us." - Henry V, Act IV, Scene iii, William Shakespeare |
| Posted by: Ebbeang Spalet3795 2006-03-07 14:50 |
| #4 Back in peacetime, I knew an ex-swab who had deserted, and been so *good* at it, that he worked as a bartender on his naval base. He was even shown his own picture by NIS (I think it was, I was Army), a time or two. Finally, they let him indirectly know that were only after him for administrative reasons (peacetime again), but after hearing his stories of successful E&E, they offered him a promotion and a job on the spot--tracking down other deserters and AWOLs. For the first time in the Navy, it was a job he really, really liked. And he soon became their #1 tracker. On ETS, they even hired him for a few weeks to train some of the other trackers, at a lot more than military pay. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-03-07 14:41 |
| #3 Of course, the USA Today headline on yahoo News had a slightly different spin - 8,000 Desert During Iraq war The a sentence near the end put it in perspective, in case anyone read that far - Desertions in 2005 represent 0.24% of the 1.4 million U.S. forces. Mainstream Media/Mad Mullas -is there a difference? Isn't Mainstream one word? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2006-03-07 14:28 |
| #2 That was muslim Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun who deserted to Lebanon, faked his death in a jihadi snuff video, returned to US custody, and deserted back to Lebanon where he is married to his first cousin like a good boy. I can only conclude that he wasn't sentenced to 20 years in the Quantico brig because of multicultural pollution of the government and military made muslims untouchable. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-03-07 13:29 |
| #1 There is only one known case of desertion in Iraq. ...Well, where the HELL are you going to go? Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2006-03-07 13:19 |