He wasn’t AWOL, he was a traitor who joined the other side.
AWOL is when you get drunk and fall asleep with your bar date and miss formation the next morning or three mornings... Not crossing the lines in the middle of the night to join the enemy...
The only good thing from it is he didn’t go full Akbar and kill troops on base as the Islamonazis did at Ft. Hood. Barack Obama defended him as well.