November 18, 2007

Military Desertion Rates and the Associated Press

By Alan Fraser
According to America's biggest news agency, the United States is facing what amounts to a desertion crisis in its military. Lolita C. Baldur of the Associated Press writes a story headlined, "Army Desertion Rate Up 80 Pct. Since '03." "Soldiers strained by six years at war are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980, with the number of Army deserters this year showing an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003....While the totals are still far lower than they were during the Vietnam War, when the draft was in effect, they show a steady increase over the past four years and a 42 percent jump since last year....Army desertion rates have fluctuated since the Vietnam War - when they peaked at 5 percent."According to this AP story, 9 in every 1,000 soldiers "went AWOL" in fiscal ending September 30, 2007.  In the year ended September 30, 2006, nearly 7 per 1,000 were AWOL.  The article uses the terms AWOL and...(Read Full Article)