Army Clears Bergdahl of Any Misconduct During Captivity

[haele]

62. AWOL is different than desertion. AWOL is usually NPJ at worse.

And Desertion is very specific; there are conditions that need to be met before AWOL (absent without leave) becomes desertion.

The most common forms of when being charged with desertion are 1) extended AWOL over 7 days after missing movement and 2) extended AWOL over 30 days . Basically, if you drop off the command's radar for 30 days without taking leave of absence, or if you don't try to re-connect or make arrangements to reconnect with your unit within 2 weeks after missing unit movement or deployment, it's automatically desertion and brig time. Before then, it's confinement to quarters, post mast (Capt's mast). One of the guys who worked for me back in the early 80's did that, disappeared for two years after he found the love of his life - who was another man. Before DADT. He actually got a better discharge (Administrative discharge after 18 months in the Brig) due to an AWOL desertion, claiming he had to take care of his dying grandma who lived alone out in the boonies with no phone during that time at his courts-martial than if he had been found guilty of Sodomy with his partner. He finally got caught because the Long Beach Naval district was cleaning up the books before they started BRACing and went out looking for him at his grandma's, where they were staying.
To summarize; in extended AWOL situations, unless you have a damn good excuse like you were in an accident and there was no way to identify you and contact your command in time to meet the deadlines, or being held hostage by a f'ed up psychopath or something like that - a situation that you had no reasonable expectation to be in or had not sought out, you will be charged and tried for desertion. Being in jail is not an excuse, but usually in those cases, your command will be informed about where you are and desertion charges are waived for other articles that you can be charged for under the UCMJ.

The third most common form considered desertion is leaving while on duty - running away in a situation where your situation does not warrant it - i.e., you dropped your rifle and ran while not in danger of being over-run by the enemy, or not in an ambush. There were guys in Vietnam that could have been charged with that if they were not fragged by their unit because they were already disliked by everyone else or given the grace of a psyche exam because their unit felt sorry for them. Similar situations include walking off with keys or classified documents to make things harder for your command to recover from your loss.

The final official form of desertion is leaving one's guard or sentry post while on duty. That is never, never, never acceptable to anyone in the military, because it puts a big gaping hole in the security of the unit. This is the form most faux noise patriots are suggesting when they initially claimed Bergdahl deserted, which from all indications is not the case. Especially since the initial investigation was that he walked away from his command, which is far different than leaving his guard post.

Basically, when people who have not had to deal with the UCMJ go on spouting things about desertion, they have no idea what they are actually talking about, nor do they have a clue about what the actual legal ramifications of desertion is to the military.

Walking off a base without leave is going AWOL. That's one story about what happened to him. Being left behind by his patrol unit who still talk like they consider him a useless bleeding heart wimp because he didn't take joy in killing random rag-heads is not AWOL or desertion on his part - and that's another potential serious UCMJ issue that they will have to deal with if they are still active duty.

At most, right now, I'd call him AWOL and unlucky because he was determined to be detained by the Taliban within a week, keeping him out of the desertion category. Because that's all the f***'n information I have on the situation, not having access to the official military investigation on the situation when it happened, and the ongoing investigation since they brought him back.I semi-dated a JAG for a couple weeks, and went to at least 4 UCMJ courses as part of my CPO leadership requirements over the years. There's a lot of gaps in all of the reporting going on with Bergdahl, and from some of the things I've been hearing from people who were over there and what little has leaked out, the situation has a lot more internal complications to it than we see. There's some heads that are going to roll in leadership that is still active (or reserve), even if they had covered their assess over time.

Haele
(USN-Ret.)