“People go AWOL from the military all the time. It isn’t really considered newsworthy unless something like this happens. It’s not like they send bounty hunters after them. The way the military sees it, they’ll pop up on the radar sooner or later.”
I could see that...I was just thinking of the Afghanistan guy who went to the other side...he was a big story.
Bowe Bergdahl deserted his post and then he got captured.
So even though he was a deserter, he was still an American and a rescue effort was undertaken where at least six soldiers from his battalion were killed during the search. Definitely newsworthy.
Come to think of it, it's probably unusual that someone as highly-trained as a SEAL would go AWOL (in the Navy, the term is UA or Unauthorized Absence). However, the Special Operations community (in all branches) has had a share of bad press lately. There's some serious dysfunction going on that many are attributing to peacetime boredom.
FWIW, the people I've seen who have skipped out have all been low-ranking deck swabs. Nobody went looking for them.