Going AWOL

[question everything]

(snip)

Circello is one of more than 20,000 American service members who have gone AWOL since the beginning of the Iraq war. Some lost faith in the management of the war; others no longer support the war itself. Still others simply got fed up with repeated deployments that took a toll on their families and personal lives.

Michael Sharp has seen a steady increase in the number of soldiers wanting to quit the service in his two years with the Military Counseling Network, a group that provides free advice on how to leave the armed forces. “Choosing to go AWOL is one of the more extreme options, but it’s also becoming a popular one among those who have decided they don’t want anything more to do with the military,” Sharp says.

According to the Army, the number of desertions began to fall after 9/11, from a high of 4,399 in 2001 to 2,450 in 2004, before creeping back up to 3,301 in 2006. Through March, 1,710 soldiers had gone AWOL in 2007, putting the number of desertions on track to be more than double the number from last year. But people at organizations like the GI Rights Hotline and the Military Counseling Network believe that the government’s official tally of 20,000 military desertions is too low. They estimate that the number is higher, by a factor of two or more.

Since the beginning of the war, hundreds of deserters have fled to Canada, fearful of being jailed or forced to return to duty. It’s starting to look like they need not have bothered: Despite troop shortages and problems hitting recruitment targets, Pentagon officials say it would be a poor use of time to go after deserters. “We don’t actively look for a deserter or have bounty hunters who go out knocking on doors,” Army spokesman Major Nathan Banks says. “It doesn’t serve our purpose to lose manpower or focus in the global war on terror to find them, because the system is set up that they’ll be caught.”

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[Tom Joad]

1. goooo Dodgers!

my avatar does not celebrate a baseball team.
It celebrates a movement.