Despite a rise in desertions from the US Army as the Iraq war drags on into a fifth year, the US military does almost nothing to find those who flee and rarely prosecutes those it gets its hands on.
An Associated Press examination of Pentagon figures shows that 174 troops were court-martialed by the Army last year for desertion -- a figure that amounts to just 5 percent of the 3,301 soldiers who deserted in fiscal year 2006. The figures are about 1 percent or less for the Navy and the Marines, according to data obtained by the AP under the Freedom of Information Act.
There is no crack team of bounty hunters, no elite military unit whose job is to track down deserters and bring them in.
Some deserters are simply allowed to return to their units, while the majority are discharged in non-criminal proceedings on less-than-honorable terms.
Pentagon officials say that while the all-volunteer military is stretched thin by the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of deserters represents an extremely small percentage of the armed forces, and it would be a poor use of time to go after them, particularly when there is a war on.
As a result, the Pentagon does little more than enter deserters' names into an FBI national criminal database.
In most cases, as long as a deserter stays out of trouble -- as long as, say, police do not pull him over for speeding and run his name through the computer -- he is in little danger of getting caught.
"A deserter either returns voluntarily or he spends the rest of his life looking over his shoulder wondering when he'll be discovered," Army spokeswoman Majore Anne Edgecombe said.
"Rather than dedicate seasoned noncommissioned officers to the task of tracking down a deserter, commanders choose to spend time and resources to ensure their soldiers are properly trained and prepared to perform the missions they will be tasked with in places like Iraq and Afghanistan," she said.
The number of Army soldiers prosecuted for desertion tripled in the year after the terrorist attacks in Sept. 11, 2001. But it has essentially held steady since 2002.
The Navy prosecuted 17 deserters last year, the Marine Corps just four.
There were 10 prosecutions for desertion in the Air Force during fiscal year 2006.
The Army is by far the biggest branch of the US military, with a half-million active-duty members, and accounts for the vast majority of American troops in Iraq.
The number of Army deserters plummeted after the 2001 terrorist attacks and the start of the Iraq war in 2003, perhaps in a burst of patriotism, and bottomed out in fiscal year 2004.
But desertions crept back up as the fighting dragged on and the death toll climbed. Since fiscal year 2004, desertions are up by more than a third.
A total of 4,399 soldiers deserted the Army in fiscal year 2001; 3,971 in 2002; 2,610 in 2003; 2,450 in 2004; 2,659 in 2005; and 3,301 in 2006.
Desertions from the Navy have declined steadily since 2001, and are down 36 percent over the past three calendar years, falling to 1,296 in 2006.
Desertions from the Marines and the Air Force bounced up and down after 2001 and stood at 834 and 42, respectively, in fiscal year 2006.
Exactly how many deserters are caught is unclear, largely because each branch of the military keeps statistics in different ways and does not give breakdowns of how many people who deserted in a given year are ultimately caught.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not