Awol Narratives

After a soldier has been absent from his or her post for more than thirty days without authorization, the soldier is officially AWOL (absent without leave), a problem that was most acute among American soldiers during the Vietnam conflict, but one that continues well into the twenty-first century among those serving in the Middle East. The subject of this paper focuses on strategies of how deserters have negotiated such a changed status since Vietnam. Although deserters and draft dodgers received safe havens in Canada, Sweden, and elsewhere, attitudes toward military personnel have changed both within the military and among the non-military. The material I employ to examine these issues include oral interviews of Vietnam War and Iraq veterans, written confessions available online, as well as literary historical novels, such as Army Vietnam veteran Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cocciata (1989) and Robert Olen Butler’s The Alleys of Eden (1994), all dealing with moral dilemmas and choices among soldiers who have gone AWOL.

My focus on AWOL narratives at this year’s AFS meeting is an extension of my interest a presentation I gave in Santa Fe last year, when I considered the use of so called “stress cards” in the military, a ploy that recruits in basic training could reportedly use to avoid excessive physical and/or mental duress, but one informant, fellow Marine who also contributed to my focus this year on AWOL narrative, insisted that such cards may have existed in other branches of the military, but certainly NEVER in the Marines! Moreover, Jerry, who did three tours in Vietnam, said there was really no to run if you decided to go AWOL, thereby diminishing the extraordinary high numbers of soldiers who actually did abandon their posts in Vietnam. Statistics tell a different story, atleast with regard to Vietnam.

From 1967 until 1972, 350,000 soldiers deserted. My one Marine Vietnam Vet informant argued the Vietnam jungle offered few places to hide, which was probably true. He did qualify his claim by admitting that only soldiers in the rear went AWOL, but that they were primarily Army and Navy personnel. Army deserters have fluctuated since Vietnam. Soldiers serving repeated lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan have increased these desertions, and the circumstances and reasons vary a great deal, especially when such unauthorized absence from duty occurs during wartime.

Another informant, one ex-SSgt Brian Morgan, described basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, during his time in the Army and before his deployment to the Middle East, as a time when recruits who were unwilling or unable to endure the rigors of physical and mental conditioning, which Morgan characterized as a form of brainwashing, attempted to leave the base a return home, often unsuccessfully. Many of those recruits left during the first few weeks of boot camp after receiving “Dear John” letters from their girlfriends, and some even attempted suicide. Indeed, one tried to jump off a two-story building but broke both legs before being hospitalized. Another drank a can of sterno used to heat C-rations, while some thought they could overdose on aspirin. A few attempted to hang themselves using an electrical cord. Those attempts at suicide usually resulted in the recruit receiving some form of confinement while being closely watched and awaiting an undesirable discharge, what is euphemistically called a “Section-8.” Another informant who was in the Marines during the 1980s and now teaches at Arkansas State University, told me of a guy in boot camp who tried to commit suicide to get out of the Marines by drinking a bottle of Brasso, used to shine belt buckles. Because the Marines claim to have a much higher standard and more stringent selection process at the recruiter’s office, this last example was an anomaly. The Marines, with few exceptions, is known to be a voluntary; nevertheless, there is currently no active military draft in place as there was during the Vietnam War, so there were occasional recruits in a Marine Corps boot camp either in the one at Parris island or at San Diego who were “”drafted” sometimes in “lieu” of serving time in prison or some other judicial order.

My own experiences at the Marine Corp Depot at San Diego in 1969 included the usual indoctrination, the ritual degradation of having your head shaved immediately upon arrival, receiving a duffel bag that you stuffed your undergarments, trousers, shirts, boots, socks, and belt, and then fell out into some kind of formation before being marched to your barracks. Within twenty-four hours, while undergoing this transformation, you listened to a drill instructor scream at you as you followed orders while trying your best not to draw attention to yourself. You also listened to what happens to those who are considering trying to leave the base or escape, or whatever. You quickly learn that on one side of the