In
military terminology,
desertion is the
abandonment of a "
duty" or
post without permission from one's Government or superior. The term
AWOL is an acronym for "Absent Without Leave." Ultimate "
duty" or "
responsibility," however, under
International Law, is not
necessarily always to a "Government" nor to a "superior," as seen
in the fourth of the
Nuremberg
Principles, which states: This Nuremberg Principle of "moral
choice," "
morality," or "
conscience" being the higher authority was
subsequently formulated into
International Law by the
United Nations as we see in this quote: In
1998, the
United Nations Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights document called “
Conscientious objection to military
service,
United Nations
Commission on Human Rights resolution 1998/77” recognized that
“persons [already] performing military service may
develop
conscientious objections” while performing military service.
Absent Without Official Leave
In the
United Kingdom,
United States and
Canada, military personnel become
AWOL (US: Absent Without Official Leave) or
AWL (UK, Canada and Australia: Absent Without
Leave), all of which are , when they are absent from their post
without a valid
pass or
leave. The United States
Marine Corps and United States Navy generally refer to this as
Unauthorized Absence, or "
UA."
Such people are dropped from their unit rolls after 30 days and
then listed as
deserters. However, as a matter of U.S.
military law, desertion is not measured
by time away from the unit, but rather:
- by leaving or remaining absent from their unit, organization,
or place of duty, where there has been a
determined intent to not return;
- if that intent is determined to be to avoid hazardous duty or
shirk contractual obligation;
- if they enlist or accept an appointment in the same or another
branch of service without disclosing the fact that they have not
been properly separated from current service.
People who are away for more than 30 days but return voluntarily or
indicate a credible intent to return may still be considered
AWOL, while those who are away for fewer than 30 days but
can credibly be shown to have no intent to return (as by joining
the
armed forces of another
country) may nevertheless be tried for
desertion or in some rare occasions
treason if enough evidence is found.
In the United States, before the
Civil War, deserters from the Army were
flogged, while after 1861
tattoos or
branding
were also adopted. The maximum U.S. penalty for desertion in
wartime remains
death, although this
punishment was last applied to
Eddie
Slovik in 1945. No US serviceman has received more than 18
months imprisonment for desertion or missing movement during the
Iraq war.
AWOL/UA may be punished with
nonjudicial punishment (NJP; called
"office hours" in the Marines). It is usually punished by
Court Martial for repeat or more severe
offenses.
Also, "Missing Movement" is another term which is used to describe
when a particular serviceman fails to arrive at the appointed time
to deploy (or "move out") with his assigned
unit,
ship, or
aircraft; in the
United States military, it is
a violation of the 87th article of the
Uniform Code of Military
Justice. The offense is similar to AWOL, but considered more
severe.
Less severe is
"Failure to Repair," consisting of missing a
formation, or failing to appear at an assigned place and time when
so ordered.
U.S. War of 1812
The desertion rate for American soldiers in the
War of 1812 was 12.7%, according to available
service records. Desertion was especially common in 1814, when
enlistment bonuses were increased from $16 to $124, inducing many
men to desert one unit and enlist in another to get two
bonuses.
Mexican–American War, 1846-48
In the
Mexican–American
War, high desertion rates were a major problem for the Mexican
army, depleting forces on the eve of battle. Most of the soldiers
were peasants who had a loyalty to their village and family but not
to the generals who conscripted them. Often hungry and ill, never
well paid, under-equipped and only partially trained, the soldiers
were held in contempt by their officers and had little reason to
fight the Americans. Looking for their opportunity, many slipped
away from camp to find their way back to their home village.
The desertion rate in the U.S. army was 8.3% (9,200 out of
111,000), compared to 12.7% during the War of 1812 and usual
peacetime rates of about 14.8% per year. Many men deserted in order
to join another U.S. unit and get a second enlistment bonus. Others
deserted because of the miserable conditions in camp, or were using
the army to get free transportation to California, where they
deserted to join the gold rush.
Several hundred deserters went over to the Mexican side; nearly all
were recent immigrants from Europe with weak ties to the U.S. The
most famous group was the
Saint Patrick's Battalion, about
half of whom were Catholics from Ireland. The Mexicans issued
broadsides and leaflets enticing U.S. soldiers with promises of
money, land bounties, and officers' commissions. Mexican guerrillas
shadowed the U.S. Army, and captured men who took unauthorized
leave or fell out of the ranks. The guerrillas coerced these men to
join the Mexican ranks—threatening to kill them if they failed to
comply. The generous promises proved illusory for most deserters,
who risked getting shot if captured by U.S. forces. About fifty of
the San Patricios were tried and hanged following their capture at
Churubusco in August 1847.
American Civil War
Desertion was a major factor for the Confederacy in the last two
years of the war. According to Weitz (2000), Confederate soldiers
fought to defend their families, not a nation.
He argues that a
hegemonic "planter class" brought Georgia
into the war with "little support from
non-slaveholders" (p. 12), and the ambivalence of
non-slaveholders toward secession, he maintains, was the key to
understanding desertion. The privations of the home front and camp
life, combined with the terror of battle, undermined the weak
attachment of southern soldiers to the Confederacy. For Georgia
troops, Sherman's march through their home counties triggered the
most desertions.
One
example of desertion in the Civil War was Confederate soldier
Arthur Muntz, who was killed by his fellow soldiers after deserting
at The First
Battle of Bull Run
. In many cases, in the early years of the
war, the
Confederate Home
Guard dealt with deserters. For a time, the
Confederate government offered
a
bounty to be paid for the capture and
return of deserters. However as the war progressively got worse for
the south, often Home Guard units would deal with desertion as they
saw fit, whether that be by
execution or
imprisonment.
In
Arkansas
, many units
deserted completely when rumors spread that local Indians had raided
towns and scalped citizens, with the soldiers feeling their place
was at home rather than fighting in the war. There were also
instances across the southern states where whole units deserted
together, banding together and living in the mountains, at times
fighting against
Union Army regulars if
forced to do so, but also raiding civilian farms to obtain food or
supplies.
[56133] The fictional story of a wounded
Confederate deserter is told in the novel
Cold Mountain, who at the end of
the Civil War walks for months to return home to the love of his
life after receiving her letters pleading him to come home. Many
Confederate units had signed on, initially, for a one year service,
and felt completely justified in walking away when they'd reached
their breaking point. By the war's end, it was estimated that the
Confederacy had lost 103,400 soldiers to desertion.
[56134]
The Union Army also faced large scale desertions. Confederate
forces lost fewer to desertion than did the northern forces. This
has been partly attributed to the southern soldiers fighting a
defensive war, on their own ground, rather than an offensive war of
invasion, which gave the southern soldiers a sense that they were
defending their homeland which is always an advantage in any war.
In addition up until late 1863 the South had many victories in fact
more than the North, and many northern soldiers felt the war was a
lost cause.
For example New York
alone
suffered 44,913 desertions by the war's end, with Pennsylvania
having 24,050 and Ohio
having
18,354, not to mention the desertions faced by the other northern
states. [56135]
World War I
"306
British and Commonwealth soldiers [were] executed for...desertion
during World War I," records the Shot at Dawn Memorial
."During the period between August 1914 and
March 1920 more than 20,000 servicemen were convicted by
courts-martial of offences which carried the death sentence. Only
3,000 of those men were ordered to be put to death and of those
just over 10% were executed...."
[56136]
World War II
Over 21,000 US military personnel were convicted and sentenced for
desertion during the 3.5 years of American involvement in
World War II. Of these, 49 were
sentenced to death, but only one soldier,
Eddie Slovik, was actually executed for
desertion; he being the only one after the
Philippine–American
War
The 'Lost Division' was a term given to the estimated 19,000
U.S. Army soldiers absent
without leave in France
at the close
of World War II.
Of the Germans who deserted the
Wehrmacht,
15,000 men were executed.
In June 1988 the Initiative for the Creation
of a Memorial to Deserters came to life in Ulm
(birthplace
of Albert Einstein). A
central idea was, "Desertion is not reprehensible, war is".
[56137]
Order No. 270, dated August 16, 1941, was issued by
Joseph Stalin. The order required
superiors to shoot deserters on the spot. Their family members were
subjected to arrest.Roberts, Geoffrey.
Stalin's Wars: From
World War to Cold War, 1939–1953. New Heaven, CT; London: Yale
University Press, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0300112041), page 98
Order No. 227 directed that each
Army must create "blocking detachments"
(
barrier troops) which would shoot
"cowards" and fleeing panicked troops at the rear. The Soviets
executed 158,000 soldiers for desertion.
Vietnam War
Approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted. Some of these
migrated to
Canada. Among those who deserted to Canada were
Andy Barrie, host of
Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation Radio's
Metro Morning,
and
Jack Todd, award-winning sports
columnist for the
Montreal
Gazette.
Iraq War
United Kingdom
On May 28, 2006, the UK military reported over 1,000 deserters
since the beginning of the
Iraq war, with
566 deserting since 2005.
[56138]
United States
According
to the Pentagon
, more than 5,500 military personnel deserted in
2003–2004, following the Iraq
invasion and occupation. [56139]. The number had reached about 8,000 by
the first quarter of 2006. Another report stated that since 2000,
about 40,000 troops from all branches of the military have
deserted, also according to the Pentagon. More than half of these
served in the US Army
[56140]. Almost all of these soldiers deserted
within the USA. There has only been one reported case of a
desertion in Iraq. The Army, Navy and Air Force reported 7,978
desertions in 2001, compared with 3,456 in 2005. The Marine Corps
showed 1,603 Marines in desertion status in 2001. That had declined
by 148 in 2005.
See also
Notes
- Peter S. Bearman; " Desertion as Localism: Army Unit Solidarity
and Group Norms in the U.S Civil War" Social Forces, Vol.
70, 1991
- Ella Lonn; Desertion during the Civil War University
of Nebraska Press, (1928 (reprinted 1998)
- Aaron W. Marrs; "Desertion and Loyalty in the South Carolina
Infantry, 1861-1865" Civil War History, Vol. 50, 2004
- Mark A. Weitz; A Higher Duty: Desertion among Georgia
Troops during the Civil War University of Nebraska Press,
2000
- Mark A. Weitz; "Preparing for the Prodigal Sons: The
Development of the Union Desertion Policy during the Civil War"
Civil War History, Vol. 45, 1999
References
- On Watch "AWOL in the Army, version 2.0",
by James
M. Branum and Susan Bassein.
- J.C.A. Stagg, "Enlisted Men in the United States Army,
1812-1815: A Preliminary Survey," William and Mary Quarterly, 43
(1986), 615-45, esp. pp. 624-25, in in JSTOR
- Douglas Meed, The Mexican War, 1846-1848 (Routledge,
2003), p. 67.
- see Edward M. Coffman, The Old Army: A Portrait
of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784-1898 (1988) p
193
- Paul Foos, A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair: Soldiers and
Social Conflict during the Mexican-American War (University of
North Carolina Press. 2002) p 25, 103-6
- Foos (2002) p 105-7
- Text of Order No. 270
- Roberts, Geoffrey. Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold
War, 1939–1953. New Heaven, CT; London: Yale University Press,
2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0300112041), page 132
- Patriots ignore greatest brutality. The
Sydney Morning Herald. August 13, 2007.
- The War's Costs . Digital History.
- Vietnam War Resisters in Canada Open Arms to U.S.
Military Deserters. Pacific News Service. June 28, 2005.
External links