[lbo-talk] A Very Long Engagement

[Carrol Cox]

See the discussion of deserters and AWOLs in the current New Yorker.
Volunteers, apparently, were more apt to desert than draftees. (The
author speculates that volunteers come in with rosier expectations than
draftees.)

Incidentally, I believe the desertion rate was higher during WW2 than in
the Vietnam War. The one (Navy) deserter who I happened to help (I think
the statute of limitations has run out) wasn't a war resister but merely
wanted to be unmolested and listen to his Top 40 records. A few years
later he returned from Sweden and I also helped him turn himself in.

Carrol