"What People Don’t Understand About the Bergdahl Deal"

[Chan790]

44. This would be technically incorrect.

You can also be immediately considered deserted if:
*you have declared your intention to not return.
*refuse to return if captured while AWOL or attempt to flee capture or return.
*attempt to join another branch of the uniformed services without disclosing your current military status.
*attempt to join another nation's service, whether friendly or foe.

(As far as we know, none of those apply to Bergdahl. He's still likely be charged with a lesser charge unless the Taliban kidnapped him from his post...which is a possibility frankly.)

Pvt. Eddie Slovik was only deserted for minutes (He refused an assignment to a forward rifle position, wrote up his intents to desert, walked several miles to a rear base and presented them to an enlisted cook.) when he was arrested and after a brief court-martial days later sentenced to death for desertion, the only US soldier executed for the crime in the 20th century. The insane thing about it was that from the moment he declared himself deserted to the cook, to the MP that arrested him, to the hearing board...they all begged him to just abandon his desertion and return to his unit. He refused, thinking he'd only get a prison term. Then having been sentenced, he was offered lesser sentence if he'd return...and refused because he was convinced that his sentence, like those of other enlisted personnel charged with the same crime, would be commuted.