AWOL in America: when desertion is the only option...........

[ElsewheresDaughter]

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/AWOL-UA-Desertion1mar05.htm



A 17-year-old was turned over to the Department of Defense last week after Bellingham police discovered the teenager, involved in a traffic accident, was allegedly a deserter from Army basic training.

—The Boston Globe,
August 12, 2004

I am seriously considering becoming a deserter. I am sorry if there are other military moms ... that look poorly on me for thinking this way but ... I WILL NOT LEAVE MY LITTLE BABY.

—Online post to BabyCenter.com,
November 21, 2004

AWOL, French Leave, the Grand Bounce, jumping ship, going over the hill—in every country, in every age, whenever and wherever there has been a military, there have been soldiers discharging themselves from the ranks. The Pentagon has estimated that since the start of the current conflict in Iraq, more than 5,500 U.S. military personnel have deserted, and yet we know the stories of only a unique handful, all whom have publicly stated their opposition to the war in Iraq, and some of whom have fled to Canada. The Vietnam war casts a long shadow, distorting our image of the deserter; four soldiers have gone over the Canadian border, looking for the safe haven of the Vietnam years, which no longer exists: there are no open arms for such refugees and almost no possibility of obtaining legal status. We imagine 5,500 conscientious objectors to a bloody quagmire, soldiers like Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia, who strongly and eloquently protested the Iraq war, having actually served there and witnessed civilians killed and prisoners abused, and who was subsequently court-martialed, found guilty of desertion, and given a year in prison. But deserters rarely leave for purely political reasons. They usually just quietly return home and hope no one notices.


Last summer, I read a news account of a twenty-one-year-old man caught by the police climbing through the window of a house. It turned out to be his house, but the cops found out he was AWOL from the Army and arrested him. That story, in all its recognizable, bungling humanity, intrigued me. It brought the truth of governments waging war home to me in a way that stories of combat had not—in particular, how the ambitions and desires of powerful men and women are borne by ordinary people: restless scrapers and tomboys from West Virginia, teenage immigrants from Mexico, and juvenile delinquents from Indiana; randy boys and girls, and callous ones; the stoic, the idealist, the aimless, the boastful and the bewildered; the highly adventurous and the deeply conformist. They carry the weight.



After reading the story of the AWOL soldier sneaking into his own house, I contacted the G.I. Rights hot line, a national referral and counseling service for military personnel, and on August 23, 2004, I interviewed Robert Dove, a burly, bearded Quaker, in the Boston offices of the American Friends Service Committee, one of the groups involved with the hot line. Dove told me of getting frantic calls from the parents of recruits, and of recruits who are so appalled by basic training that they "can't eat, they literally vomit every time they put a spoon to their mouths, they're having nightmares and wetting their beds." Down in Chatham County, North Carolina, Steve and Lenore Woolford answer calls from the hot line in their home. Steve was most haunted by the soldiers who want out badly but who he can tell are not smart or self-assured enough to accomplish it; the ones who ask the same questions over and over again and want to know exactly what to say to their commanding officer. The G.I. Rights hot line introduced me to deserters willing to talk, and those soldiers put me in contact with others.

I met my first deserters in early September and over the next four months followed some of them through the process of turning themselves in and getting released from the military. They came from Indiana, Oregon, Washington, California, Georgia, Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts. I met with the mother and sister of a Marine who was UA (Unauthorized Absence, the Navy and Marine term for AWOL) in the mother's home in Alto, Georgia, and at the Quantico base in Virginia one Sunday afternoon I met with eight deserters returned to military custody, members of the Casualty Platoon, as the Marines refer to them, since they are "lost combatants." One of the AWOL soldiers, Jeremiah Adler, offered to show me the letters he had written home from boot camp; a Marine called with weekly reports from Quantico where he awaited his court-martial or administrative release. Through these soldiers, and the counselors at the G.I. Rights hot line, I discovered that the recruiting process and the training were keys to understanding why soldiers desert, as is an overextended Army's increasingly strong grip on them.

more....

[TheIntruder240]

1. If you choose desertion

you be better be ready to face the consequences, a court martial and time in the brig.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

2. ok, but did you read the article?

[meow2u3]

3. Deserters' defense

Bush deserted his Guard duty and got off scot-free. So why is he punishing us for the same thing he did with impunity?

[pocket]

4. "disenchanted with the constant painting and scraping of ships"

what a retard

[applegrove]

5. Seventeen?

[WebeBlue]

6. Thanks for posting....and

while I'm already seeing caustic comments, the concept expressed in the entire article, rather than each of the individual stories is a concept that points to what has become more than an issue of desertion.

These KIDS, ie 17 yrs, 18, 19 yrs old would not have a clue what they are getting into and it is foolishness to expect that because they signed on the dotted line that they must now follow through. Once those kids are enlisted, they are virtually stuck, with no way out. And this war differs even from Vietnam, in that the deceptive practices of Stop Loss, extended tours, repeated deployments, activation of National Guard, Reserves and IRR really ought to be a pretty strong indicator that this is a long way from being an all volunteer military.

Military family here, military brat here, young wife to young Viet era draftee. We have two close loved ones deployed to Iraq, extended tours (15 mos) and are now young Iraq veterans. Both are now under Orders for a second deployment to Iraq, AND under Stop Loss orders. Both are to make decision about re-enlist this month. Being already now under Stop Loss, they will wind up in 2nd tours to Iraq whether they re-enlist or not, less the attractive bonus being waved about. Doesn't sound like much of a choice to me....and doesn't sound like volunteer to me. Sounds like deceptive practices to me to try to keep an "all volunteer military" by exploiting our young.

[BushIsBurning]

7. How About Fragging, Followed by Desertion ??