That’s the headline of this column by Peter Worthington from the Toronto Sun about Army deserter Jeremy Hinzman:

But these guys today aren’t draft dodgers—a qualitative difference. There is no draft in the U.S. It’s a volunteer army, like ours.

These guys are deserters, and there’s a certain disdain for deserters. Even during Vietnam, a draft dodger was more acceptable than a deserter, which reeks of cowardice no matter how one sugarcoats it.

...

A poster boy for deserters, today Hinzman is a bicycle courier. It’s a far cry from the university education he says he joined the army to get—until the shooting started.

Joining the military to get an education or to lift yourself above your current economic status is an honorable and time honored tradition in America. Before an enlistee signs the papers and takes the oath it is made quite clear that he will be required to kill people and blow things up. People who don’t like doing that shouldn’t put on the uniform to begin with. Or volunteer to be in the America’s Guard of Honor. Hinzman knew what he was doing, and what was he getting into. He took a chance we wouldn’t get into a shooting war, and he lost. Suck it up Hinzman.

Worthington brings up many good points, of which I’ve only highlighted two. Do RTWT.