I thought deserters used to be hung...Bush was AWOL, however.
Desertion
Desertion is the act of leaving military service, or a place of duty, without permission and with the intention not to return. It is the intention not to return that differentiates desertion from the less serious offense of absence from duty. Desertion has been the bane of virtually every organized military force throughout history, and few armies, from the most egalitarian to the most authoritarian, seem to be immune: it takes place in war and peace, in garrison and at the front.
Given the sheer dimension of the phenomenon, desertions have unquestionably undermined the efficiency of military organizations. In Napoleonic France, deserters numbered hundreds of thousands: as many as half of the draftees from the Haute-Loire district could be expected to absent themselves from the army at the earliest opportunity. Similarly, in the first year and a half of the American Civil War,the Army of the Potomac alone had 85,000 desertions. However, the advent of peace brought no lessening of the number of desertions in the U.S. Army. To the contrary, the harsh conditions of peacetime service on the western frontier encouraged whole regiments to virtually evaporate: in 1867, desertions from George Custer's famous Seventh Cavalry Regiment reached 52 percent, and between 1867 and 1891, almost one-third of the troops discharged themselves. In more contemporary times, the practice continued, although at somewhat diminished rates. In World War II,the U.S. Army reported 40,000 deserters and the British Army over 100,000, the apparent discrepancy being accounted for by the more lenient American interpretation of "desertion" as opposed to mere absence without leave.
The omnipresence of desertion suggests that the underlying causes vary. The fear of death or injury in battle is one obvious factor, but more widespread motives are likely to be less dramatic: simple discontent with military life, homesickness, boredom with garrison duty, personal or financial problems. Indeed, studies of British and American deserters in World War II indicate that soldiers who were less well adjusted as civilians were more likely to desert. Opportunity also plays a part. In the French Foreign Legion, desertion rates varied with locale: in Algeria the problem was less acute if only because there was no place to desert to. Weather can also be a consideration; in the post-Civil War American army, the nickname for a deserter was "snowbird," a reference to those soldiers who preferred to serve only through the winter, deserting in the spring when travel was easier and jobs in the mines or on the transcontinental railroad became available.
Traditionally, desertion was among the most serious of military crimes, but punishment—as other aspects of military life—was subject to wide variation. In the army of Frederick the Great,a deserter, especially one from the battlefield, could expect death; but over the years, punishment seems to have been lessened. In the pre-Civil War U.S. Army, a deserter was flogged; after 1861 the practice was discontinued in favor of tattooing or branding. In World War II the U.S. Army frequently charged troops as Absent Without Leave (AWOL) who would have been classified as deserters in most other armies. However, the problem of absence from duty, by whatever name, became so acute in the European theater in 1944 and 1945 that one hapless soldier, Private Eddie Skovik, was executed as an example to others. |
