Shaping Up

The problem of desertion from the ranks has long given the South Vietnamese army nearly as much trouble as the Communist enemy. Some 37,000 regular, regional and popular government forces deserted in 1963, twice that many the next year, and 113,000 last year. During the first six months of this year, 67,000 went over the hill, a shocking annual rate of more than one man in every five under arms.

The reason has to do partly with the fatigue of 20 years of war, partly with French colonial policy, which promoted few Vietnamese to officer rank, and partly with the flimsy framework of new nationhood. Even after the French left, there was a shortage of nearly everything needed for a good army: buildings, bases, firing ranges, leadership, esprit. Loyalties continued to go to family rather than the new nation.

Until last month there was not even a law against desertion. Now the Ky government has decreed that a deserter will be sentenced to five years in a labor battalion attached to a combat unit. A second offense will mean ten years, and a third death. Advance warning of the decree began last April, and the regular-army desertion rate has already begun to drop, from 24 per 1,000 men in March to twelve by the end of July. Moreover, many classified as deserters in the past had simply gone home to join the army unit closest to the family--and were almost impossible to track. The U.S. command in Saigon is setting up a punch-card system for the regular Vietnamese army so that it will know where all its men are at any given time. Meanwhile, U.S. observers like to remind critics that the Union Army ran up a total of 200,000 deserters during the Civil War.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.