One thing you learn very quickly in the military is that apparently the English language is very cumbersome and just takes too much time to talk in a normal fashion. To combat this, over the history of the military a very unique form of communication that consists of a lot of acronyms has evolved. It takes a little bit of time to pick it up but eventually they all make sense. For someone unfamiliar with many of the useless acronyms it can sound a bit like you’re listening to a foreign language. One of the more well-known acronyms however is AWOL. Many people may know what it means without actually knowing what the letters mean, but AWOL stands for absent without leave. Basically it means that someone in the military has purposely left without being authorized to do so. Typically someone is considered AWOL after they have been gone for 24 hours or more. If it is positively known that the soldier left and doesn’t intend to come back they can be considered AWOL right away.

The reason I bring up the AWOL issue is because there is a case going right now with the only known American soldier being held as a POW by the Taliban in either Afghanistan or Pakistan. The USA is in the process of trying to bring this soldier home, but as I’ve stated in previous articles, negotiating with extremists and illogical people can be a difficult thing to do. When I first started reading about the missing soldier it sounded pretty terrible. My thought was do what you have to do to bring him home. The more I read the more fishy the situation started sounding. The soldier was confirmed to have written and said some pretty harsh anti-American comments to friends and family and showed a lot of disgust towards the US and its military operations around the world. It started to sound like he voluntarily walked away from his base with the intentions of seeking refuge with the Taliban. They don’t seem like a very warm and friendly bunch to me, but I’m sure they would be excited to welcome a deserter for the purposes of using it as propaganda.

I forget the guys name now but when I was deployed I remember there was a case involving an officer who was a platoon leader in one of our sister battalions. He made a public statement about the legality of the Iraq war and stated that he would not fight or work because he believed the war to be illegal. He of course had a large following of cronies who called him a hero, and the voice of a group of people that want to stick it to the man, and that’s fine with me. I don’t agree with his chosen method of making his point, but we’re all allowed to voice our opinions, as dumb as some of our opinions may be. What I have a problem with is the way he went about it. He was a 2nd Lieutenant in 2007, so he presumably was commissioned within a year or two before that meaning he willingly signed up for the Army in or around 2005, 4 years after the start of Afghanistan and 2 years after the invasion of Iraq. So he signed up, spent time training and preparing for combat with his soldiers, and then shortly before his deployment decided to make his point, leaving his soldiers without the leader with which they trained which puts people in unneeded danger . My personal opinion on this man was that he displayed much more qualities of cowardice than social activist, but I’ve been accused of being wrong before, so who knows.

Desertion is an offense which can be punished by death. I think that’s a very extreme reaction to being AWOL and I would argue that a death sentence is going too far, with the exception of anyone who goes AWOL with the intentions of joining the enemy and in any way contributing to their efforts to fight against the United States whether it’s with intelligence or giving vital information. I do not know all of the specifics of either of these cases other than what I’ve read about them which may not contain all of the evidence to make a comprehensive decision. The last time I researched these cases the Lt. I talked about was spending some time in Fort Leavenworth penitentiary, and when or if the only known POW of the Afghanistan is brought home he may have some difficult questions that need to answer.