I looked into _New Yorker_ but couldn't find any article about AWOLs and deserters in the current issue. You meant _Harper's_, right? "During the Vietnam war, enlisted men were far more likely to desert than those who were drafted. Perhaps they had higher expectations of Army life, or perhaps a man who volunteers for service feels like he has some sense of control over his fate, a feeling a draftee could hardly share" (Kathy Dobie, "AWOL in America: When Desertion Is the Only Option," _Harper's Magazine_ 310.1858, <http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/AWOL-UA-Desertion1mar05.htm>, March 1, 2005).
>Incidentally, I believe the desertion rate was higher during WW2
>than in the Vietnam War.
Precisely,
<blockquote>Desertion, to be sure, has often been a serious problem in the past. In 1826, for example, desertions exceeded 50% of the total enlistments in the Army. During the Civil War, in 1864, Jefferson Davis reported to the Confederate Congress: "Two thirds of our men are absent, most absent without leave."
Desertion rates are going straight up in Army, Marines, and Air Force. Curiously, however, during the period since 1968 when desertion has nearly doubled for all three other services, the Navy's rate has risen by less than 20 percent.
In 1970, the Army had 65,643 deserters, or roughly the equivalent of four infantry divisions. This desertion rate (52.3 soldiers per thousand) is well over twice the peak rate for Korea (22.5 per thousand). It is more than quadruple the 1966 desertion-rate (14.7 per thousand) of the ten well-trained, high-spirited professional Army.
If desertions continue to rise(as they are still doing this year), they will attain or surpass the WWII peak of 63 per thousand, which, incidentally, occurred in the same year (1945) when more soldiers were actually being discharged from the Army for psychoneurosis than were drafted. (Col. Robert D. Heinl, Jr., "The Collapse of Armed Forces," North American Newspaper Alliance Armed Forces Journal, <http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/Vietnam/heinl.html>, June 7, 1971)</blockquote>
See, also, Elihu Rose, "Desertion' (_Reader's Companion to Military History_, <http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/mil/html/mh_014700_desertion.htm>).
Conscription was employed during the Civil War, World War 2, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War as well as many other wars and interventions, but, contrary to the myth, the Vietnam War didn't see the worst desertion rates. -- Yoshie
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