Desertion

“ As he walked up the rising ground toward the caves, that ground he had traversed so often when this place had been, to all intents and purposes, his home, where there had been voices and movement and life, the sense of desertion grew upon him—not only desertion of the place, but of himself. ”

“ The horrors of war no pen can describe, no tongue can utter, no pencil can paint. The demoralizing influence over the soldier is dreadful. No doubt desertion was this fellow's aim, and, to serve his purpose, he fell into this strong temptation and crime. Desertion cost the life of one whom I saw in Mississippi sitting on a white-pine coffin and followed by his armed comrades, who were soon to take his life. ”

“ Now desertion is a great offence in a soldier; in this army it is one of the most common ; for nearly ten per cent, of the American army has deserted in Mexico, not to mention the desertions before the army reached that country. It is related that forty-eight men were hanged at once for desertion; not hanged as you judicially murder men in time of peace, privately, as if ashamed of the deed, in the corner of a gaol, and by a contrivance which shortens the agony, and makes death humane as possible. ”

“ Desertion is a crime that meets generally with as much contempt as cowardice, and yet how hard for the husband or father to remain inactive in winter quarters, knowing that his wife and little ones were literally starving at home—not even at home, for few homes were left. ”

“ We should distinguish between the causes that bring about a given desertion, and the conscious motives in the mind of the deserter. It is well for the social worker to make the latter the starting point in dealing with the man, accepting the most preposterous as at least worthy of discussion. ”

“ Who has threatened them with the penalties of desertion? For not one is missing from the company. Listen, all inhospitable hearts, ye who shut your doors, whose house is never open either in the winter or in the night to travellers. ”

“ Some item of this sort appears in every list of causes of desertion which has ever been compiled, and there are more or less exceptional cases in which it probably plays a part. The boy who becomes a vagabond in childhood and early takes to the road does not, however, seem to be a marrying man; and the instances from case work in which it is clear that the thirst for adventure was at the bottom of desertion are rare. ”

“ The probable consequences of detection after a second desertion were so serious that he dared not remain in their house, but was compelled to conceal himself in places the least frequented of the country round; sometimes lying in the sheepfolds and outhouses with the animals and cattle, and sometimes in ditches and holes in the earth, so that a life of wretchedness and privation was all that he gained by his escape. ”

“ Is desertion rare and much abhorred? Or so common that men are no longer shot for it now? So you may go on enumerating until it strikes you that you are simply drifting into an inventory of all the details of the enemy's wartime life, in the field and at home. ”

“ Looked at from the point of view of the social worker, desertion is itself only a symptom of some more deeply seated trouble in the family structure. The problem presented, if it could have been recognized in time, is not essentially different from what it would have been before the man's departure. Without attempting, therefore, any statistical analysis of the causes of desertion, we may nevertheless be able to examine one by one a number of possible contributory factors in marital unhappiness and therefore in desertion. ”

“ Desertion is where a person, bound by his enlistment to remain in service, in violation of his duty escapes from the control of those in command. An attempt to desert is where the motive to desert is conceived, and an effort made to carry it into effect, but which is not fully accomplished, owing to the want of success, or to a change of purpose. ”

“ The Article of Desertion also, the Consequences of which they dread on returning home, disposes many to abandon their Country for ever. Others, on quitting the Service, take up with such Establishments, as it has occasionally thrown in their Way ”

“ Man's Whereabouts Unknown, Desertion of Long Standing.—A very different problem from the preceding may be presented in the family of a man who disappeared some time ago. Where the desertion is bona fide and has persisted over a period of years, it is often possible to treat the family as if the man were dead, and, if other circumstances make this advisable, to plan comprehensively for the future. There is always the chance, however, that, until the man's death is established, he may turn up unexpectedly. ”

“ In all armies desertion while on active service is punishable by death; on the continent of Europe, owing to the system of compulsory service, desertion is infrequent, and takes place usually when the deserter wishes to leave his country altogether. ”

“ Many men have already deserted, many more will I am afraid take the same course, whatever sense of duties, ties of affection, and severity of discipline may operate, shall be employed by me, and I wish we might come near the enemy, which is the only means to put a stop to the spirit of desertion. ”

“ We have sometimes found it possible to recognize a 'pre-desertion state' in the intermittent deserter, where we know the conditions which previously led to desertion, but I doubt whether we have very often been able to note it in the case of first desertions. In general, I should say a growing carelessness or a growing despondency as to his ability to care for his family are danger signals in the man, of which it is well to keep track. ”

“ If there have been previous desertions, it is extremely important to secure their history. The reasons that moved the man once are likely to do so again, and he is apt to return to his former haunts and be seen by former friends and acquaintances. ”

“ The social worker who attempts to deal with the situation the deserter creates should know this attitude in advance and be prepared, through some simple rule-of-thumb psychology, to attack the obsession and bring him, first of all, to see and face squarely his own responsibility.
Many blanket theories have been developed to explain desertion—that it is due to economic pressure; that it is the result of bad housekeeping; that its causes can all be reduced to sex incompatibility. ”

“ A young vaudeville actor of Italian parentage married a Jewish girl, a cabaret singer, and took her home to live with his parents. Was his subsequent desertion to be ascribed to difference in nationality and religion, to interference of relatives, to irregular and unsettling occupation, or to a combination of all three? Would all marriages so handicapped turn out as badly? If not, what further factors entered to lower the threshold of resistance to disintegration in this particular case? ”

“ At present, it is the experience of social workers that few men deliberately reckon upon transferring the burden of their family's support to others, or are induced by these considerations to leave. [14]
In trying to determine the cause for any given desertion it is well to keep in mind from the beginning that there is probably more than one, and that the obvious causes that first appear are almost certain themselves to be the effects of more deeply underlying causes. ”

“ The alarm had spread rapidly among a people still suffering from the wounds of the Seven Years' War. The only refuge was desertion, and although the frontiers were closely guarded, deserters passed daily into the neighboring territories, where, from the people at least, they found a ready reception. ”

“ An attempt will be made in this small book to analyze some causal factors in the problem of the deserter, to touch upon recent changes in the attitude of social workers toward deserted families, to present illustrations from the best discoverable practice in the treatment of desertion, and to suggest certain possible next steps, both on the legal and on the social side. For lack of space, it will be impossible to consider the closely related problems of the deserting wife, the unmarried mother, or the divorced couple. ”

“ Only in rare instances will the deserter accept the entire responsibility for his act. To try to find justification for doing what we want to do is characteristic of human beings, and the deserter is no exception. ”

“ Besides, the sudden change in their manner of living, (particularly in the lodging) brings on sickness in many; impatience in all, and such an unconquerable desire of returning to their respective homes that it not only produces shameful, and scandalous Desertions among themselves, but infuses the like spirit in others. ”

“ The amusement parks near the large cities also furnish occupation for the seasonal deserter. The case worker cannot be expected to have such knowledge at his finger-tips, but he can go to people who know about the fluctuations of particular trades—to employers, union officials or fellow-workmen who may throw light on a deserter's movements. ”

“ There is no doubt that the two groups grade imperceptibly into each other; but of the twenty or more case workers who were consulted in the preparation of this material, nearly all felt that the out-and-out deserter, if he can be got hold of, is more promising material to work with than the man who sits about the home and lets others maintain it. They all recognize a common middle ground where the two groups merge into each other ”

“ Few laws were at that time in existence or at all adequately enforced, and any man who desired was at liberty, so far as the community was concerned, to walk off and leave his family at any time. The multiplicity of sources of relief in the large communities and the absence of anything resembling investigation constituted almost an invitation to men to desert. ”

“ Retreat amid the wounded, retreat in hopeless rear-guard actions with dead on every side, retreat on roads crowded with homeless and hopeless refugees fleeing anywhere away from the advancing [Pg 251] horror of war, retreat without food, retreat without sleep, retreat in rain, in mud, in blazing heat, in choking thirst, retreat under the reproachful eyes of deserted women, retreat under the stinging shame of defeat, retreat until the heart was as weary as the feet and death would be a boon. ”

“ And I—a lone exile remembered of none— My high aims abandoned,—my good acts undone— Aweary of all that is under the sun— With that sadness of heart which no stranger may scan, I fly to the desert afar from man. Afar in the desert I love to ride, With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side, When the wild turmoil of this wearisome life, With its scenes of oppression, corruption, and strife— The proud man's frown, and the base man's fear— The scorner's laugh, and the sufferer's tear— And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and folly, Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy ”

“ No hand tames me and goads me on—my mouth knows no bit and curb—the desert is my home—solitude my society—my own will my law—and they who strive to take and chain me, to break me down to the world's habits, or to bind me by man's opinions, will either rue the bite of the free wild beast, or see him die before the hunters, in silence and despair. ”

“ Oppressors. Neither the freedom of the primal struggle, Nor the freedom of the ultimate peace. Society, a hoofed monster, trampling to death the race. Truth, dweller in the starry places, More elusive than moonlight upon the sea, tremulous. Let me behold your brow which is vague as night, infinite. Let me look into your eyes which are deeper than the
skies of this Desert.
Where are you. Truth, where are you?
Shadowy, appearing, disappearing, ever retreating.
As the mirage of the Desert which lures to the glittering
Death-spaces ; always advancing, never overtaken. ”

“ Sooner than have been ingloriously dismissed; sooner than to have been branded with the name of deserter—a stain never to be washed out, a stigma to mark your remembrance and disgrace your children after you are dead—sooner than this should have ever overtaken you, you have showed by your gallant conduct that you would have preferred to have been riddled by the enemy’s bullets and died on the field. ”

“ Melancholy and terrible was the truth that his desert years, so hard, so clean, so cold, so pure, the restraint of his enforced exile, had developed in him instincts masterless in their importunity. Life shrieking out of his flesh and blood for the future that nature demanded! ”

“ For that dread land began to close us in,
With cold and hunger, bit at our poor limbs,
Till life grew there a feeble, flickering flame,
Amid the snows and ice-floes of that land.
Then ten days crept out shrunk and gray and wan,
With nothing but the lonely, haunted waste.
Then spake the leader, “If in five more days!”
Then parcelled out those five gray, haggard days,
While life to me grew like an ebbing tide,
That surged far out from some dread death-like strand. ”

“ But how is it with those solitary souls isolated in the world,—the lone herder who is found lifeless in some vast waterless desert, the pioneer whose bones are stumbled over by the tardy pickets of civilization,—and even those nearer us,—here in our city,—who are found in silent houses, in deserted streets, in the solitude of salt meadows, in the miserable desolation of vacant lands beyond the suburbs? ”

“ But the deserter's fate was only terrible; suffering without glory, "the pang without the palm." From those dreary fortress prisons where the "refractory" toiled in the garb of convicts, fed on bread and water, with shaven heads and fettered feet, no man ever came forth alive. ”