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However, before I do this, I want it to be made clear that I don't necessarily support this point of view. I've spent a lot of time studying military history, though, so maybe I have some useful insight as to why some people would hold desertion to be a very high and even unforgivable crime. I'm going to skip entirely the ethics of fighting in general and assume that once someone is inducted that person is cognizant of the duty he has to his fellow soldiers, to his unit, his armed force, and his country. If you want to argue from that point of view, I can't help you--but please note that I'm not writing this from some godforsaken bunker in a combat zone.
Also, I want to apologize in advance to France and the French people. For some reason as I'm sorting all this out in my mind, all of the best examples I can think of happen to be of French debacles. Believe me, there are plenty of examples everywhere--including the entire American Civil War, where the various kinds of rampant desertion had to be quantified in order to avoid having to imprison or execute a large proportion of both armed forces (the ones considered least repugnant were styled "stragglers"). George Washington was inspired to his greatest feats of field command because a large proportion of his army was threatening to leave the field and go home--legally, as it was, but it's still a form of desertion as well. But those examples are too complicated for me to cite below.
Desertion creates problems on many levels, but the level probably most worried about is the effect it has on unit cohesion--an extremely important concept in warfare which I won't have time to define beyond "the unit does what it's supposed to do." Desertion cuts to the very heart of unit cohesion. "Pardon one offense and you encourage the commission of many," was an observation made by someone important whom I can't recall, and history shows the observation to be quite true. So when someone deserts, you have to go find that person, or risk having others think they can get away with the same thing. Actually, it's not a risk, it's a guarantee that others will do it, as the American Civil War clearly shows.
Desertion creates a drain on manpower (beyond just the missing person, you must also include the other people who are going to have to go find that person, the people you have to set up to guard against others doing the same, the bureaucrats who have to monitor the rate of desertion, and so on), it's a drain on unit morale, it damages discipline, and that combination of factors in turn damages unit readiness and ultimately, unit cohesion.
A unit suffering from poor cohesion is certain to get other, better units in trouble, and is also certain to get dutifully serving soldiers killed, both in the unit with poor cohesion and those unlucky enough to be next to them (because when the enemy exploits the poor cohesion of the offending unit, the good units next to it will be attacked unexpectedly in flank).
The offense is hugely compounded when it's desertion in the face of the enemy, as in just before or during actual combat. This guy in the article probably didn't do that, but the poster above may have been thinking about desertion in the face of the enemy as opposed to mere cut-and-run desertion before shipping out. Both are a pain in the ass, but in my opinion one is far, far more reprehensible than the other.
Which brings us to the French as examples of how desertion causes disaster:
* During the early days of the French Revolution, regiments got the bright idea that they could elect their own officers. Then, when it came time to fight, some got the idea of unelecting officers who wanted to place those units in the midst of combat. Some units actually voted to desert en masse, and marched off the field. That in turn left gaps in the French line, which led to the deaths of dutifully serving French troops and several defeats which threatened the existence of the fledgling French democracy. One might even argue that the disciplinary backlash which followed provided the chance for Napoleon to destroy French democracy entirely, though fortunately only temporarily.
* The French Mutiny of 1917, a direct result of the idiotic and horribly bloody Nivelle Offensives, may or may not have caused more deaths. It may have prolonged the war (highly debateable), but it also may have saved lives by forcing the French generals to refine their tactics and limit their objectives. I give it only as an example of one of the largest threatened desertions I know of. One important observation: the mutiny didn't stop the war at all, but it certainly damaged the ability of the French to end the war that year, either by victory or by defeat.
* During the evacuation at Dunkirk in 1940, French troops fought gallantly against overwhelming odds to hold off attacking German troops, which allowed the BEF to escape partially intact. The survival of the British Expeditionary Force allowed Britain to continue the war and ultimately to ensure the downfall of the Nazis. However, many of the French troops deserted, while deserters from elsewhere converged upon the Dunkirk lines, and hid within the perimeter. When it came time for the French rearguard to make its own escape, a roughly equal number of deserters descended upon the evacuation fleet, taking up all the available space on the evacuation boats and leaving the dutifully serving French troops to die or be captured. The shitty troops thus escaped to cause problems for the remainder of the war; the good troops were taken out of the war entirely.
* By the conclusion of Dien Bien Phu, it is believed that one out of two French soldiers in the field were deserters, living in the no-man's land between the Viet Minh and the dutifully serving French troops. The deserters often got to airdropped supplies before the non-deserters did, denying supplies to the real defenders and, as it turned out, ensuring the deaths of virtually all of them.
As these examples show, desertion very often gets other people killed, and leaves those who serve honorably to suffer the consequences created by those who flee dishonorably. Therefore, it's easy for me to understand why some people would equate desertion with other deadly crimes such as manslaughter and negligent homicide, or even murder. If I explained it correctly, perhaps you too can understand a little better why desertion is so frowned upon. If everyone, everywhere got up at the same time and went home, the world would be a better place. But it hasn't happened yet, ever.
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