..Which begs the question, “How does a U.S. Soldier just ‘walk off a base’? Isn’t there ingress/egress control, not just ingress control? WTF? Remember the soldier who also just walked off a base and got kidnapped? Someone ‘splain please..
Maybe nobody is expected to abandon the base?
I wouldn’t necessarily fault the military on this point. Somebody will always figure out how to by-pass any procedure at some point.
I read somewhere (yes, on the Internet!) that he was assigned to a special project affiliated with the locals, and that’s how he was able to leave.