Talk:Desertion

message: The text says: "Approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted."
but reference 13, "Vietnam War Resisters in Canada Open Arms to U.S. Military Deserters"
says ... a far cry from the 50,000 men who deserted the U.S. military during the war in Southeast Asia. ...
-- 50 000 not 500 000.
(Is 500 000 impossibly many?? Or is there a difference between servicemen and military personnel?)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.112.246.174 (talk) 10:24, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Vietnam: 500 000 deserters, or 50 000?

message: Hi! The article says:
"Over 21,000 US military personnel were convicted and sentenced for desertion during the 3.5 years of American involvement in World War II. There were over 16,000 men who escaped through air travel .... 4,000 men escaped by sea... The 'Lost Division' was a term given to the estimated 19,000 U.S. Army soldiers absent without leave in France at the close of World War II."
* Does anyone have any sources for this statistics?
* I'm looking for the total number of deserters. I suppose I should add the numbers together? 21 + 16 + 4 + 19?
/Magnus  —Preceding unsigned comment added by LeoMaheo (talk • contribs) 05:02, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Statistics, World War II deserters, sources?

message: This article should discuss the penalty for desertion. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 18:03, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
But what are the possable penaltys for being UA?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.162.128.52 (talk) 18:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Penalty for desertion

message: "Of these 21,000, 49 were given the death penalty, but only Eddie Slovik was actually executed."
Presumably this should say something like "49 were sentenced to death, but...", since 'given the penalty' makes it sound as if they were actually executed. --Calair 12:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Confusing wording

message: There's a list describing how desertion is "measured" under the headline AWOL: Absent Without Leave. The first four elements on the list seem to constitute that "measurement", while the last two are statements about AWOL. The last one, "If a man or woman goes AWOL during a battle, allied troops gain permission to gun them down.", really shocked me, by the way. Is that really true?
I'm 100% sure it's a mistake, so I haven't edited it, but I thought I'd at least leave a comment about it. --Odd M. Nilsen 19:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: More importantly, how do they ‘gun down’ somebody who is absent? ;-) Seriously, leaving one’s unit in a battle without permission/a good reason is deserting, not going AWOL. (‘I don’t want to die like the fools who stay here’ is technically a good reason, but the fools may fail to see it the same way…) Armed forces tend to try to discourage this sort of behaviour, sometimes by lethal means. However, the article should really say where that statement applies and give a citation. —xyzzyn 20:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  AWOL: Absent Without Leave 

message: A couple of points, if I may, in no particular order:1) I notice the topic of the American Civil War seems to emphasize desertion by troops from Georgia. States closer to major fighting (ex: TN, NC...) had higher desertion rates, from what I understand (will have to research that). Point is, the Wiki article sounds a bit bias against Georgia. ??2) The North suffered from the exact same problem, in probably the same numbers proportionally (though they had the advantage of many more new recruits). But the article doesn't mention that.3) Confederate forces had the phenomenon of "plough furloughs" whereby soldiers would depart without leave to plant or harvest. I suppose thats "awol" rather than "desertion", but might be worth mentioning as a comparison. The Army generally turned a blind eye if the soldier returned when his own commander wrote asking him to return.4) I've seen a source somewhere estimating that at wars end, well over 200,000 Confederates had permanently deserted through the course of the war. That is a little known but very significant impact on the south's ability to continue the war. Engr105th 19:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  American Civil War 

message: It seems to be there's something missing from this page - it mentions desertion in WWII and the Iraq War, but doesn't have a section about the Vietnam War, when I would have thought desertion might have been quite common. Does anyone know if this was the case? Or did opponents to the Vietnam War simply dodge the draft altogether instead? Terraxos (talk) 02:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vietnam War? 

message: when a soldier disobeys commands? 76.16.191.46 (talk) 04:45, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Insubordination --Lennier1 (talk) 13:43, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is it called... 

message: I do not understand the sentence:
"Desertion was not especially common in 1814, when enlistment bonuses were increased from $16 to $124, inducing many men to desert one unit and enlist in another to get two bonuses."
Should not it be "Desertion was especially common in 1814..."? (Delete "not".)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.66.40.82 (talk) 09:21, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it a mistake? 

message: Much of the introductory paragraph was devoted to discussion of the moral justification for desertion rather than being a concise description of desertion. This material was moved into its own section.--Srich32977 (talk) 15:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: justification

message: My ancestor, 1815 Mobile, Alabama, 3rd U.S. Infantry, Col. Gilbert Christian Russell, Sr. (for whom Russell County, Alabama is named), 1782-1861 (see 'Find-a-Grave', Magnolia Cemetery, Mobile, for his picture and grave's picture) is the "Col. Russell" mentioned in the "Six Coffins" anti-President Jackson posters (six versions in National Archives). Col. Russell executed by musketry, the "six Tennessee militiamen" (one actually from Kentucky). Ensign Russell, 1803, had been appointed to 2nd U.S. Infantry from Tenn. (and as a Capt of the 7th 1808 or Maj. of the 5th 1809, was C.O. of Ft. Pickering, Memphis, when he tried to save the life of his friend Capt. Meriwether Lewis). I mention this simply to indicate Russell may have been on personal terms with the more than hundred Tenn. enlisted, and their officers involved.
The 100-plus Tenn. militiamen under their officers--and their officers; wanted to return home after the expiration of obligation to remain ceased in their individual contracts. There was also the issue had that contract to serve (only?) as TENNESSEE MILITIAMEN, been breached by service out of state? However I do not recall that defense raised in their courts martial. The Tenn. militiamen's officers tried to convince Gen. Jackson that their legal obligation to remain had ceased with the expiration of their contracts. Jackson, who was confronted by an impending battle, refused to negotiate with the men acting through their (democratically elected?) officers. Jackson's position on the matter was clear before the men left. 
None of the Tenn. officer leadership were executed; just six enlisted examples who Jackson considered agitators. Jackson needed the 100-plus other Tenn. would-be 'deserters'; alive to fight in the impending battle in New Orleans. That the officers seemed to be men of economic, social, political, and military higher stature standing in their Tenn. communities; might explain why, Jackson-like: 'the head of the snake was not cut off', rather just the examples of infected tail nipped; the bulk of that 'body', it's men would soon be needed in an effort of supreme importance.
Having read the courts martial transcript (National Archives), except for about six difficult to read pages. The men's sole defense seems to be, that within-the-four-corners of their contracts, their legal obligation to remain; ceased with the expiration of those contracts. Within-the-four-corners of the recorded courts martial per se; the Army did not cite statute law to the contrary, the contracts as such to the contrary, U.S. or earlier Crown military traditions, or impending military necessity. Silence, but for the orders of the Supreme Commander. Everyone should understand that legal standards in military court don't compare equally to those of a civilian court.
If military necessity of the impending battle in which Jackson needed more men than he had, seems a legitimate reason, both practically and legally; why was it not used in the courts martial? It was not needed, as a contractual right to disobey military orders are exceedingly rare.
Yes, after the dead men could not defend themselves further, and the resulting civilian public hew-and-cry; the Army bureaucratically added all sorts of post-executions justifications into the record the Army controlled. Had the dead men been able to confront these belated Army justifications alive at the time of their trial, had the Army raised them then; would such then, have been legally valid? 
Even though such may long be valid now: 1. was there then anything within-the-four-corners of the militiamen's (original Tenn, or superseding U.S.?) explicit contracts permitting the implicit involuntary extension of the men's/officers contracts; 2. was there then existing Tenn. and/or U.S. statute law, permitting their involuntary implicit extensions of their contractual obligation to remain despite the original explicit contracts wording; 3. (in effect common law) did prior Tenn. or U.S. military tradition permit such; if earlier British military Crown law traditions permitted such, was that earlier law still, Constitutionally and post Declaration of Independence, still valid in the U.S.; lastly, did obvious impending military necessity permit such involuntary extension of those contracts?
Militiamen have never been able to walk off their posts without being summarily dismissed from duty. Arrival of replacements, camp existing in hostile territory or impending battle are surely all ample reasons to postpone or extend contracted enlistments. During WWII recruits were told, "You're in the Army now. You'll never get rich, you..."  know the rest.
If immediate, or soon; impending military necessity legally justified the involuntary contract extensions; why was that issue not raised by the Army at the time of the men's courts martial per se?  Even though the men were convicted after Gen. Jackson's departure, their choice to leave camp without being paid or mustered out was a poorly thought-out decision. 
If valid legally, the reason military necessity may not have been raised by Jackson, might have existed in Gen. Jackson's character and ego. As a practicing lawyer, Jackson could make good nit-picking legal arguments; had as a General, Jackson chosen to. But if the Technician Jackson's law was not on the General's side, such as invading British East Florida and hanging people; Jackson generally, just did it. Jackson was a pragmatist, and he knew full well that having competing nations in Florida, who excited and promoted the native peoples to commit barbarous atrocities on the frontiers of American settlements, he could cut the head off of that snake without WRITTEN approval, and could make examples of them for not bending to the Laws of Civilized Society.
In contrast, in the Battle of New Orleans arena; for local opponent, Louisiana militia officer Duncan (spelling?), of local high economic and social standing; (politically) skilled legal argument was Jackson's weapon of choice.  ∞ focusoninfinity 20:20, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  War of 1812 

message: Much of this section is, at best, dubious and unsourced.  Some of it may be a hoax.  Can somebody fix this? Bearian (talk) 00:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you elaborate a little? My cursory inspection shows nothing implausible and every statement appears to have a supporting cite. --Yaush (talk) 14:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Desertion#World_War_II]] 

message: Regarding (or better yet: With regard to) this edit summary, actually it was a grammar checker I used many years ago that would alter all my -ing verbs either to the infinitive or something else.  It called the usage of -ing verbs "passive" and "weak", so I've tried to obliterate them from my own usage.  And often when I come across their usage on Wikipedia, I feel it improves the encyclopedia to decrease the usage of passive verbs; it makes Wikipedia stronger.  No big deal; do as you like. – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 20:26, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree completely that the passive voice makes for poor writing in most instances. What happened here did not have to do with the passive voice. Concise and understandable, there is nothing "weak" about it. For example, changing "cartoon depicting Jesus facing a firing squad" to "cartoon that depicts Jesus who faces a firing squad" only adds verbosity without improving clarity. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 03:27, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar 

message: Isn't this typically referred to as the Soviet war in Afghanistan? --SVTCobra (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section on "Afgan civil war" 

message: I think it is worth while including a section about Australia as it was to my knowledge the only country in World War 1 that didn't use execution for Desertion. Although it was legal it was never carried out. 
http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/desertion/
Wonx2150 (talk) 17:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Australia 

message: Heyo, I'm generally familiar with the citation template stuff, but am kind of a newbie at how it should be implemented.....but this page does not seem to be doing it "right." I realize reference styles and citation methods are sometimes a contentious thing, so I wanted to bring this to the table here before trying to do any reformatting.  I don't contend that the citations themselves were organically generated incorrectly; that all seems to be quite intact.  Where it seems a little wonky is the format within the page: It contains a "References" section, to which all the in-line citations are correctly adjoined, but directly below, there is another section named "References Cited."  Two things seem off; first, why is/was this information not appended/merged to the section above? Second, none of the "references cited" in this section are linked to in-line citations within the article, when there are explicit references to such citations within the article? It just seems to me that format-wise, these two sections should be adjoined, and definitely at least, the in-line citations need to be linked up. (Thoughts solicited here.)Waltymcnaulty (talk) 22:47, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a difference between a citation and a reference. For an example of how this could look, see Coast Guard Squadron One as one example. The cites are usually page numbers and the references are the full information about where the cite can be found including web links or ISBN's and publishing information and the title of the book or reference.  In the Desertion article many of the citations are just links, with no information as to what website they are from. That is called a bare url and it is not very desirable as a cite form. The example I showed you in the link above is a short form cite that give only the author and page number, to find out what reference was used you only have to look in that section for the author and it give you the information you need to find the source of the cite.  This form saves from repeating a bunch of redundant information in the cite area.  To my way of thinking it looks much cleaner.  (Spoiler... the Coast Guard Squadron One article is mine.) Ideally there is no information between the two sections that are actually redundant. This is just one method, there are other methods that work just as well. The desertion article really needs some cleanup as far as citations are concerned. Cuprum17 (talk) 01:36, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Redundant references template?

message: What is in, current international/military law, the status of a deserter from one side in a war in the eyes of the other side if they come across him? 
Is he to be considered a civilian, taken as PoW, or what else? Are they allowed to employ him in their service?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8108:1E40:12A0:887F:4657:8704:7BBA (talk) 14:02, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legal status of a Deserter from the perspective of the enemy? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This section looks poor with problems in terms of OR, neutrality. It perhaps may be excessive, looking as if almost a whole article was included in this. This should really be fixed. Mellk (talk) 16:24, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Soviet desertion in the Afghan Civil War 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Lost Division. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so.  Paul_012 (talk) 04:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Lost Division" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect AWOL. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so.  I'm  Caker18! I edit Wikipedia sparingly. (talk)  01:26, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  "AWOL" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: This articles twice asserts that "AWL" is used rather than "AWOL":
:"...absence without leave (U.S.: AWOL /ˈeɪwɒl/; British and Commonwealth: AWL)..."
:..."AWOL" (/ˈeɪwɒl/; U.S.A. and Canada: absence without leave) or "AWL" (UK and Australia: absent without leave)
The 2nd instance has been tagged  since June 2016.  There's also an inherent contradiction because Canada is in the Commonwealth. I can't find a reliable source for the use of AWL, and given that the citation needed tag has been there for 3 years, I've removed the statements. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 14:22, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  AWL 

message: The article greatly discusses desertion, and notes a distinction from AWOL, but it has nothing about AWOL by itself: what constitutes AWOL, what the positions of the various military services are about it, what extent a person may go without serious consequences (e.g. they leave after going off duty and are back on premises before they are due to go on duty). Part of this stems from two examples of AWOL that I have encountered in television: Jo's boyfriend Eddie in "The Facts of Life" is AWOL in one episode and notes he needs to be back in time; the movie "Sky Hei$t" in which the thieves' driver claims to a policeman that he has soldiers that are AWOL trying to get back to base. GBC (talk) 03:03, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: You bring up a good point. Either there needs to be a dedicated article on the subject of absence without leave or it needs to be a section in the desertion article discussing absence without leave in more detail. Technically, they are two different offenses that are inter-related; in other words if the offender takes matters to far then they are suspect under another offense. In the "Manual for Courts-martial United States" desertion is covered under Article 85 and Absence Without Leave is covered under Article 86. Two different offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I don't know which modification needs to be made, separate section within the desertion article detailing AWOL or a separate article in itself. Frankly I am amazed that someone hasn't attempted a separate article before now. Please keep in mind that what comes out of Hollywood may be loosely based on fact written by someone who probably never served in the military or didn't research the facts before sitting down at a keyboard. To be fair, many who served in the military couldn't really define the difference between desertion and AWOL either. There are technical differences that should be brought out in a Wikipedia article but some of the differences are so obscure that it takes a court-martial board to decide the particulars of an individual case. Of course, the UCMJ only covers the Armed Forces of the United States and other countries should probably have differences noted to make a worldwide view for Wikipedia purposes. Interesting subject that maybe you could help pursue. Cuprum17 (talk) 13:54, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  No specific detailed discussion of AWOL