Army desertion rates soaring 80 percent since 2003 Iraq invasion

Judy over at Judes BlogLoggin sent me this story. From The International Herald Tribune:

After six years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, American soldiers are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980. The number of US Army deserters this year shows an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

The totals remain far lower than they were during the Vietnam War, when conscription was in effect, but they show a steady increase over the past four years and a 42 percent jump since last year.

"We're asking a lot of soldiers these days," said Roy Wallace, director of plans and resources for Army personnel. "They're humans. They have all sorts of issues back home and other places like that. So, I'm sure it has to do with the stress of being a soldier."

The Army defines a deserter as someone who has been absent without leave for longer than 30 days. The soldier is then discharged as a deserter.

According to the Army, about nine in every 1,000 soldiers deserted in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, compared with nearly seven per 1,000 a year earlier. Overall, 4,698 soldiers deserted this year, compared with 3,301 last year.

The Army has had to bear the brunt of the war demands as many soldiers served repeated, lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military leaders — including Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey — have acknowledged that the Army has been stretched nearly to the breaking point by the combat. Efforts are under way to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps to lessen the burden and give troops more time off between deployments.

"We have been concentrating on this," said Wallace. "The Army can't afford to throw away good people. We have got to work with those individuals and try to help them become good soldiers."

Still, he noted that "the military is not for everybody; not everybody can be a soldier." And those who want to leave the service will find a way to do it, he said.

There is a lot to talk about on this story. First, there is the question of why desertions have increased. And the answer is quite simple--it is the endless back-to-back tours in Iraq that soldiers are forced to endure. The Army doesn't have enough troops to continue this war. And not only does the Army not have enough troops to continue the war, but volunteer enlistments to the Army have been consistently dropping. All of this links back to the Bush administration's war in Iraq. This Army is broken.

The second interesting point is the Army's failure to acknowledge that it is the war in Iraq that is causing this breakdown. Go back up into this Hearald Tribune story, and look at what this Roy Wallace, director of plans and resources for Army personnel, has to say about the desertions--We're asking a lot of soldiers these days....They're humans. They have all sorts of issues back home and other places like that. So, I'm sure it has to do with the stress of being a soldier. The Army can't afford to throw away good people. We have got to work with those individuals and try to help them become good soldiers. [The] military is not for everybody; not everybody can be a soldier." And those who want to leave the service will find a way to do it, Wallace said. Look at the quotes that Wallace gives to this story. First, Wallace acknowledges that the Army has demanded a lot from their soldiers, and that the soldiers are experiencing a great deal of stress over the extended, back-to-back tours. But then Wallace makes a 180 degree turn, and blames the soldiers for their desertions, saying that not everyone can be a good soldier. It now becomes the soldiers' fault for not taking these endless, back-to-back tours--three, four, or even five times in a row where they are away from their families, their spouses, and their children. It is not the Army's fault for completely using up their troops in this disastrous war in Iraq. There is a hypocrisy here within the Pentagon, where the Iraq war is causing the military to be broken down. This increase in Army's desertion rate is just another symptom of the Army's complete breakdown.

Finally, there is this comparison between the desertion rates of today, with the Army's war in Iraq, compared with the desertion rates of the Army during the Vietnam War. The Herald Tribune reports that total desertion rates are lower today than they were during the Vietnam War, where they ranged from 1 to 3 percent (which is up to three out of every 100 soldiers) during the 1970s, and even peaked at 5 percent. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the desertion rate was between 2 and 3 out of every 1,000 soldiers. For 2007, the Army reports a desertion rate of nine in every 1,000 soldiers. The problem with these statistics is that there is one big variable that the Army has ignored, when comparing the desertion rate in the Vietnam War with the desertion rate for Iraq--namely, the draft! During the Vietnam War, the Army was conscripting young Americans to go and fight in the jungles, whether they supported the war or not, and whether they wanted to join the military or not. They were drafted into the Army against their will. And those young Americans, who didn't want to serve in the Army during the Vietnam War, were going to find ways to get out of the Army, and out of the war. That includes desertion. So for these desertion rates, you have to consider the number of Americans who didn't want to serve in the Army, but were conscripted against their will. That number is certainly going to be higher.

Now let's go to the war in Iraq. The Army is no longer an army of draftees, but of volunteers. These are young Americans who willingly chose to join the Army--they knew they were going to have to fight in a war someday. And if these young Americans enlisted into the Army after the September 11th terrorist attacks, they certainly knew that they were going to be sent to fight in either Iraq or Afghanistan. These are soldiers who were not drafted into the Army against their will, and would not desert the Army because they opposed the war. That is the biggest difference between this Army fighting in Iraq, verses the Army fighting during the Vietnam War. It is a difference that you really can't compare here, because you have two different armies comprised of two different types of soldiers--one is an army of volunteers, verses another army of draftees. You really can't compare the two.

Now you can compare the desertion rates between the Army of the 1980s and 90s, verses the Army of today, since all three armies were comprised of volunteers. And here is where the desertion rates do get interesting. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the Army desertion rate was between 2 and 3 out of every 1,000 soldiers. For 2007, the Army reports a desertion rate of nine in every 1,000 soldiers. The desertion rate for the Army in 2007 is three times higher than the desertion rate in the 1980s and 90s. Why? The answer probably goes back to the U.S. war in Afghanistan and Iraq. We've been engaged in these disastrous wars for six years--far longer than any of the military engagements that the U.S. has been in during the 1980s and 1990s, and that includes the 1991 Gulf War. Again, the Army has used up its troops from the extended, and back-to-back deployments, since the Army cannot recruit enough volunteers to replace those used-up troops. U.S. soldiers are saying enough is enough--they've served their country many times over, and now they want to go back to their families. They want out of this disastrous war.