What Happens If You Go AWOL or Desert in the Military

Going absent without leave or deserting are among the easiest offenses to prove under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The government needs only to show that a service member was supposed to be somewhere and was not. What follows, from the unit search to a possible court-martial to the lasting consequences, depends almost entirely on one question: why was the person gone, and what did they intend?

That single question is the line between the two charges, and it is the difference between a punishment measured in days and one that, in the most extreme historical case, ended at a firing squad.

AWOL and desertion are different offenses, not different lengths of absence

It is tempting to think desertion is just a long AWOL. It is not. The two are separate crimes under separate articles, and what separates them is intent.

Absence without leave is charged under Article 86 of the UCMJ, which covers a service member who fails to go to an appointed place of duty, leaves it, or is absent from the unit without authority (Article 86, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. 886). It requires no proof of intent to stay away; the offense is complete the moment the absence happens. A soldier who oversleeps and misses formation has committed the same basic offense as one gone for three weeks. The two are worlds apart at sentencing, but the element proven is identical: an unauthorized absence.

Desertion, charged under Article 85, adds the element that makes it grave. The government must prove the accused intended to remain away permanently, or left or remained away to avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service (Article 85, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. 885). That intent is what turns an absence into desertion. Without it, the same facts are only an Article 86 case, no matter how long the person was gone.

Because intent lives inside a person’s head, the law gives prosecutors a way to reach it through circumstance. Under the Manual for Courts-Martial, a continuous absence of more than 30 days, once admitted or proven, is evidence from which a court-martial may infer the intent to remain away permanently (Manual for Courts-Martial, explanation to Article 85). It is a permissible inference, not an automatic conviction; the accused can rebut it by explaining why a long absence did not mean an intent to stay gone forever.

The practical contrast is stark. A service member who overstays approved leave by a week is looking at Article 86. Someone who empties a barracks room, sells a car, and disappears the day before a combat deployment is looking at Article 85, because those acts speak to intent. The facts that matter are the ones that reveal what the person meant to do.

How an absence case actually unfolds

When someone fails to report, the unit does not assume the worst. A supervisor tries phone calls and checks the barracks room and emergency contacts before the formal machinery starts. Once the member is formally reported absent, the administrative consequences begin: a flag in personnel systems, pay actions, and a duty status of AWOL. If the absence passes 30 days, the member is dropped from the rolls of the unit and a deserter warrant can be entered into federal databases, meaning a routine traffic stop or background check years later can lead to apprehension and return to military control.

Whether the case is handled administratively or judicially is a command decision, and most absence cases never see a courtroom. A short, explained AWOL is often resolved with nonjudicial punishment under Article 15 or with administrative separation. Court-martial is reserved for longer absences, aggravating circumstances, or cases the command decides to charge as desertion. The investigation after a return focuses on what happened and why, because that record drives both the charge and the eventual sentence.

What the punishment range looks like

The consequences for AWOL are graduated by the length of the absence and how it ended. Under the maximum punishments in the Manual for Courts-Martial, an absence of three days or less tops out at one month of confinement; more than three but not more than 30 days reaches six months; and an absence of more than 30 days authorizes a dishonorable discharge, total forfeitures, and up to one year of confinement. If an absence of more than 30 days is ended by apprehension rather than voluntary surrender, the maximum confinement rises to 18 months (Manual for Courts-Martial, maximum punishments for Article 86). The 2024 edition of the Manual reorganized these into sentencing categories, but the structure of escalating maximums by duration remains.

Desertion is treated far more seriously. In peacetime, desertion with intent to remain away permanently carries a maximum of a dishonorable discharge, total forfeitures, and two years of confinement; desertion to avoid hazardous duty or shirk important service raises the confinement maximum to five years (Article 85 maximum punishments, Manual for Courts-Martial). And desertion in time of war remains, on paper, a capital offense: the maximum is death (Article 85, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. 885). That penalty has not been carried out in the modern era, but it is still the law, which is why the wartime context of an absence can change everything about how it is charged.

The sentence in any real case turns on the surrounding facts as much as the article: how long the person was gone, why they left, whether they surrendered or were caught, and what their service record shows. Those factors are also where a defense lives. For desertion, the most common defense attacks the government’s proof of intent, since a long absence can have many explanations that fall short of an intent to stay away forever. For AWOL, the defense often disputes whether the absence was unauthorized at all, pointing to approved leave that was poorly documented or circumstances that made return impossible. Mental health conditions such as PTSD or depression do not erase the absence, but they frequently shape how a command and a sentencing authority treat the case.

Two real cases that show where the line falls

The abstract difference between Article 86 and Article 85 becomes concrete in two court-martials that sit at opposite ends of military history.

The first is modern. The court-martial of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl shows what intent looks like in practice. Bergdahl walked off his remote observation post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was captured and held by the Taliban for nearly five years. In 2017 he pleaded guilty to desertion under Article 85 and to misbehavior before the enemy under Article 99, and was sentenced to a dishonorable discharge, reduction to the lowest enlisted grade, and a $10,000 forfeiture, with no confinement (Army Times, Nov. 3, 2017). The case did not end there: in 2023 a federal district court vacated the conviction and sentence after finding the military judge had failed to disclose a job application to the executive branch, and the government’s appeal was still before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as of late 2025 (NPR, July 26, 2023).

The second case shows the article’s outer limit. Private Eddie Slovik is the only American soldier executed for desertion since the Civil War. Convicted by a nine-officer court-martial panel in late 1944, he was shot by firing squad on January 31, 1945, near Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, France (History.com, “The execution of Pvt. Slovik”). The context is what makes his case the definitive answer to whether a soldier can really be executed for desertion: of more than 21,000 American service members convicted of desertion during World War II, 49 received death sentences, and Slovik’s was the only one carried out (Military.com, Dec. 5, 2025). General Eisenhower confirmed the order during the Battle of the Bulge. Read against Bergdahl, Slovik marks how far the wartime penalty in Article 85 can theoretically reach, and how rarely it has.

Placed side by side, the two cases trace the whole span of the offense. Both men left their posts in a war zone under the same article. What differed was the era, the charges stacked alongside the absence, and the punishment a court would impose.

Voluntary return and the long-term record

For someone currently absent, the manner of return carries real legal weight. Voluntary surrender cuts against the inference of an intent to remain away permanently, which goes directly to whether an absence is charged as desertion or AWOL. It also affects the maximum punishment, since an over-30-day absence ended by apprehension carries a higher confinement ceiling than one ended by surrender.

The consequences also outlast the sentence. A punitive discharge, bad conduct or dishonorable, follows a person into civilian life, appears on background checks, and bars most veterans’ benefits. A federal conviction can complicate security clearances, professional licensing, and federal employment, and for non-citizen service members desertion can carry immigration consequences, including removal, because it may be treated as a crime involving moral turpitude.

Frequently asked questions

Is AWOL the same as desertion?

No. Both involve an unauthorized absence, but desertion under Article 85 requires proof of intent to remain away permanently or to avoid hazardous duty or important service, while AWOL under Article 86 requires no such intent. A long absence is not automatically desertion; it is one fact a court may weigh in deciding intent.

Does being gone more than 30 days automatically make it desertion?

No. A continuous absence of more than 30 days is evidence from which a court-martial may infer an intent to remain away permanently, but it is a permissible inference, not a conviction. The accused can offer an explanation that rebuts it.

Can a service member really be executed for desertion?

Desertion in time of war remains a capital offense under Article 85, so death is the stated maximum. In practice, the only American soldier executed for desertion since the Civil War was Eddie Slovik in 1945.

Is there a statute of limitations on desertion?

Desertion and AWOL have no statute of limitations while the absence continues, and a deserter warrant can remain active indefinitely. The passage of time can affect what punishment a command pursues, but it does not erase the offense.

Does voluntary surrender matter?

Yes. It undercuts the inference of intent to remain away permanently, and an over-30-day absence ended by surrender carries a lower maximum confinement than one ended by apprehension.

Sources

• Article 85, UCMJ (Desertion), 10 U.S.C. 885: https://uscode.house.gov/
• Article 86, UCMJ (Absence without leave), 10 U.S.C. 886: https://uscode.house.gov/
• Manual for Courts-Martial, United States, maximum punishments and explanations for Articles 85 and 86: https://jsc.defense.gov/
• Army Times, “Bergdahl sentence: Dishonorable discharge, no prison time,” Nov. 3, 2017: https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/11/03/bergdahl-sentence-dishonorable-discharge-no-prison-time/
• NPR, “Bowe Bergdahl’s desertion conviction is voided,” July 26, 2023: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/26/1190254340/bowe-bergdahl-desertion-conviction-voided
• History.com, “The execution of Pvt. Slovik,” Jan. 31: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-31/the-execution-of-pvt-slovik
• Military.com, “Death by Firing Squad: Eddie Slovik,” Dec. 5, 2025: https://www.military.com/daily-news/investigations-and-features/2025/12/05/death-firing-squad-eddie-slovik-became-only-us-soldier-executed-desertion-wwii.html

This article is for general information about military law and is not legal advice.