You have to love the blatant bias the New York Times displays when they write an article such as this, with the headline:
Army Revises Upward Number of Desertions in ’06
After which they proceed to interview "some Army officers" who tell them it’s this damn war:
A total of 3,196 active-duty soldiers deserted the Army last year, or 853 more than previously reported, according to revised figures from the Army.
The new calculations by the Army, which had about 500,000 active-duty troops at the end of 2006, significantly alter the annual desertion totals since the 2000 fiscal year.
In 2005, for example, the Army now says 2,543 soldiers deserted, not the 2,011 it had reported. For some earlier years, the desertion numbers were revised downward.
[…]Some Army officers link the recent uptick in annual desertion rates to the toll of wartime deployments and point to the increasing percentage of troops who are on their second or third tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.
But alas they wait until the 3rd to last paragraph to tell us that, well, the desertions are about average:
Over all, desertions, a chronic problem in the Army but hardly pervasive, now account for less than 1 percent of active-duty soldiers. The current annual rates pale in comparison with the 33,094 soldiers — 3.41 percent of the total force — who deserted the Army in 1971, during the Vietnam War.
So what your telling me is that the desertion rate is about average?
And the reason for this article is?
I’ll tell you the reason for this article, it’s just one more papercut applied by the MSM to the Bush administration. An article with no real story, all to highlight that Iraq is bad. Bush is bad mmmmmkay.
You know that if Kerry was President the Times wouldn’t be wasting their time about the desertion rate being about the same, no they would be spending their time talking about those Congress critters adding pork to bills to get them passed….
Oh, wait a minute…..
Nevermind.
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Numbers for desertions are always revised up this time of year because many who are now “deserters” were only AWOL in December. It takes some time to consider one a “deserter” vs someone who skipped out for a couple of weeks. If someone is on leave for the first weeks of December and hasn’t returned by February, they might be marked as having deserted in the middle of December but until now has been considered only AWOL.
Desertion from an all volunteer military after you swore and oath. What kind of people are these? I hope to never find out that anyone in my family tree was that cowardly or stupid. If one of my children did it I would consider it my duty to take them out of this world since I brought them in. If I found out that an employee had deserted after swearing an oath they would be on the unemployment line and any future employeer that called with questions would get the facts plus whatever I could make up to be sure they stayed on the unemployment line. That could be the problem, employment, a study would most likely show they had never been worth spit and were welfare bred, born and fed. Worthless as tits on a boar hog.
Curt, USA Today did a similar article last year, in which the headline was misleading. It’s only if you read the article itself that you find out that the overall desertion rate plunged after 9/11.My blog post.