MILITARY TIMES: Army Desertions Have Risen 35% In Past Two Years

[DeSwiss]

Three Brothers go AWOL

Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
June 05, 2007



CARLTON, MINN. -- Luke Kamunen began to wonder if he'd made a mistake the moment he arrived for basic training. He was still in the airport at Fort Jackson, S.C., with other members of his Minnesota National Guard unit, when an officer reprimanded him publicly for leaving a paper cup on his seat in the airport. "I was thinking, is this what it's going to be like the whole time?" Luke said. "I'm not even on the bus yet." His twin brother, Leif, started having doubts within weeks when a drill sergeant indicated they were probably headed to Iraq. Leif said that possibility had been downplayed by the recruiter who signed him up in Duluth.

On Jan. 2, the twins, age 21, and their brother Leo, 20, went AWOL from the Army. All three failed to return to basic training after Christmas break in northern Minnesota. Five months later, Luke has been released from the military, while Leif and Leo remain absent without leave. They say they plan to turn themselves in soon. The Kamunen brothers are an example of a growing problem -- Army desertions have risen 35 percent in the past two years, according to Defense Department figures. The number rose from 2,450 in 2004 to 3,301 in 2006.

There are many more who go AWOL -- tens of thousands who leave without permission for anywhere from 24 hours to 30 days. "In any large group of military, you are always going to have some people change their minds," said Dennis Schulstad, a retired Air Force brigadier general and a former Minneapolis City Council member. Soldiers who desert are only a fraction of the 2.5 million in the military.

But Ronald Krebs, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, blames the sharp rise on the "unfathomable pressure" that recruiters are now under. He says that forces them to lower standards and recruit people who might be less stable. "Lower-quality recruits desert at much higher rates than higher-quality recruits," said Krebs, author of "Fighting for Rights: Military Service and the Politics of Citizenship," published last year by Cornell University Press.

The Kamunens are typical of young recruits who go AWOL, said Sam Diener of the GI Rights Hotline, a national organization that counsels soldiers. "The recruits are disproportionately rural, mostly high school graduates who aren't sure what to do next," he said. Still, the Kamunens' situation is unusual, simply because there are three of them. "I've talked to thousands and thousands of AWOLs," said the GI Hotline's Bill Galvin. "And I don't think I've ever heard of two brothers going AWOL at the same time."

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,138137,00.html

[jtrockville]

1. Desertions are UP 35%, not AT 35%

[DeSwiss]

2. Thank you....

...you aren't Mrs. Woods my 10th grade English teacher by chance are you??? j/k

[jtrockville]

3. LOL, no. I'm more likely to have been...

your MATH teacher. But alas, I chose the profession of writing software rather than teaching. But math is my first and truest love. So don't mess up the numbers again, k? :)