Faram wrote:
That is called DESERTION, AWOL is for a short time and if you return.
Atleast in the Swedish army dunno about the american but I suspect it's the same there.
Desertion used to be punishable with death, that and Treason was the last death penaltys removed in Sweden
Absent Without Leave (the Navy usually uses UA for Unathorized Absense)- is the designation for unauthorized absenses of up to a month in most cases. After that the person's status is changed to deserter. The punishment for being AWOL and Desertion are going to varry depending on whether we're in a state of war and how the absense impacts things.
The Navy's Nuke school used to have a big marker board with all the people who were AWOL (UA)/Deserters.
By the pricking of my thumb,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks.
I don't think we'll ever know whether Bush is telling the truth or not.
I've seen some pretty piss-poor recording keeping in the active duty military in much better times than the 70's so I wouldn't be surprised if all of what Bush's camp says about his service is true. It is always important to cover your own ass in the military and I definately wouldn't have put it passed Bush not to get or keep copies of paperwork to protect himself because undoubtably he wouldn't have thought it was necessary given how things were in the country at the time.
I also wouldn't be shocked to find out that all of what his detractors say is true and that people in the various units covered for him, most likely through inaction (not reporting or documenting his absence), for whatever reasons and then helped get him an honorable discharge.
Look at it this way. Most of the people in the gaurd didn't want to be there I doubt many of them would hold it against someone who was trying to play the system for all it was worth while getting on with his life.
By the pricking of my thumb,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks.
Likewise we can forgice his father the way the navy did for straffing life boats immediatly following a series of Kamikazi attacks, at the time the US had a "Total War" doctorine, where all japanese were considered armed hostiles. Total blatant disreguard of Geneva, but Japan had aslo been in blatant disreguard of Geneva at the time. Two wrongs don't make a right but that is often how the game is playied.
The scariest folk song lyrics are "My Boy Grew up to be just like me" from cats in the cradle by Harry Chapin
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del., Oct. 27 -- When construction began last year on a new $30 million mortuary, Pentagon planners had little idea that its doors would open to a steady stream of casualties from a distant and enduring conflict.
"This resonates loudly and sadly," Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said at Monday's ribbon-cutting for the Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs.
"The idea that this facility is opening at a time when body bags are coming home is not a glad time. Thank God [the center] is here, but I wish we didn't need to build it. Everyone thought this was going to be like Gulf War I, that Johnny and Jack would be home by Christmas."
Plans for the new center, which replaces another one by the same name, had been on the books for years. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when more than 200 workers spent weeks identifying the remains of those killed in the Pentagon, the project was finally launched.
Since 1955, remains of more than 50,000 service members have been brought here for identification and preparation for funeral. The center, the only military mortuary in the continental United States, has handled fatalities from every major conflict since the Vietnam War and virtually every dark day in recent history, including the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia this year.
Now, as planes carry the bodies of the country's dead from Iraq, the new center's opening takes on an added resonance.
"We are a nation at war, and we must always remember that nations that honor their fallen warriors will endure," said Maj. Gen. Robert Griffin, deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversaw construction. "This building represents that sacred commitment."
Arrivals of flag-draped coffins to the base have been off-limits to the media for 12 years.[/size=21] So today's rare tour offered grim portents of what may come when the center formally opens Sunday: pristine autopsy labs, rows of caskets still in their wrapping, machines to check for unexploded ordnance lodged in dead soldiers, ventilation systems that recycle the air every four minutes.
A light but stubborn rain moved the small crowd of service members, politicians and media representatives inside the mortuary's shipping bay, where bodies, having been prepared for funeral, are sent home. Hanging from the rafters above was a hoist that lifts the remains of the fallen into caskets.
Staff at the mortuary has been reduced since the height of the Iraq war in April, said the center's director, Karen Giles. Casualties that once arrived more than a dozen at a time now arrive in ones and twos.
In remarks at the ceremony, Biden thanked the staff members who help prepare the dead, saying they perform jobs considered some of the toughest in the military with "sensitivity, grace and dignity."
"And every American," he continued, "whether or not they see news coverage of the solemn ceremonies that have been the hallmark of this center, knows you are here."
Air Force chaplain David Sparks prayed that the new installation would be seldom used.
"Bring them home safe and soon," he said of the military personnel serving abroad, and he prayed for a day "when there is no need for a multimillion-dollar mortuary."
Wow, I guess it's all a seekrit conspiracy between George W Bush and
his daddy who could see far into the future when he did that order
back in 1991.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
