Oh noes! Desertion is back up the level it was for the three years preceding OIF! The sky is falling!

It’s more a question of the degree of alarm warranted by the trend.
Judging by comparisons to pre-war years and current overall conditions, I see it as seriously higher than pooh-pooh but dramatically below SOS!

In a likely reflection of the continued strain of multiple deployments to a 4½-year war, the number of soldiers deserting the Army skyrocketed during the past fiscal year to its highest level since 2001.

All told, 4,698 soldiers were declared deserters, according to Lt. Col. Darryl Darden of the Army’s office of the deputy chief of staff for manpower and personnel. That is a 42.3 percent increase over the previous fiscal year, and the highest annual total since fiscal year 2001, when 4,399 troops deserted.

More disturbingly, the pace of Army desertions appears to have increased even during fiscal 2007: 63.6 percent of the year’s 4,698 desertions were recorded from April through September, according to Army data.

Both AT and AP state the same point about a significant increase in desertions. But nobody is claiming anything near the numbers of Vietnam, just a disturbing trend. maybe this has something to do with a broken military that many former military have warned us about.

Where is JS to moderate these…

That, I would say, goes in the ‘good news’ category.
They do appear to be reacting pro-actively.

You know how this is going to be played on the lefty blogs, don’t you? The simple fact is that the article fails to mention that comparable rates existed before the war when the Army wasn’t deployed nearly as much. As a result, I’m simply suggesting that perhaps the desertion rate we’re seeing today isn’t unusually high historically and is not cause for hyperventilation.

Frankly, I’m quite surprised the rate isn’t much higher considering the strain on our Army. Maybe the upward trend will continue and maybe it won’t. Certainly the Army is cognizant of what’s going on and will monitor and take measures to keep desertion rates low – after all, high desertion rates negatively affect the morale, discipline and cohesion of armed forces.

If the AP story hyped this trend, then the de-bunkers are leaning too far backwards in the opposite direction.

Obviously the military is concerned or it would not be engaged in measures to change the minds of the errant sheep. It’s a concern, here and now, in today’s circumstances.

Comparisons to other years serve to put the trend into better perspective, but they don’t negate the concern as it applies to the here and now.

The Viet Nam war, BTW, can not be standard by which we should assess when it’s time to start worrying.

I don’t like to tell bloggers how to do their jobs, but I found these numbers and additonal supporting information in about 15 seconds. I would therefore humbly suggest that a modicum of fact-checking might take place before posting.