Characteristics of Army Deserters in the DoD Special Discharge Review Program
Abstract
The purposes of the report is to describe the characteristics and experiences of Army deserters participating in the Department of Defense Special Discharge Review Program (SDRP) and to draw inference from the data about desertion during the Vietnam era. Participants were divided into two groups: those who lived in foreign lands while absent without level (AWOL) and those who did not. Those groups, in turn, were compared with other deserters and soldiers of the era. Participants in the SDRP were not typical deserters of the time: 81% of them were exiles, compared to 1% to 5% for the era as a whole. The demographic profile of the exiles in the program was quite different from that of the typical deserters and from soldiers, in general, of the era. For example, compared with soldiers the exiles were much more likely to be (a) white, (b) highly educated, and (c) higher in mental ability. That finding was anticipated in view of similar findings in a reanalysis of data from the Ford Clemency Program. Exiles were also less likely to have served in Vietnam. Compared with other deserters, they were much more likely to have left the Army for antiwar reasons and to have planned to desert rather than gone AWOL. In contrast, the nonexiled deserters resembled the 'classic' deserter profile of this and previous conflicts. These findings strongly suggest that the Vietnam era produced more than one type of deserter, which should be kept in mind when describing the era.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1979
- Accession Number
- ADA078601
Entities
People
- D. B. Bell
Organizations
- U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences