Legal Question in Military Law in Wisconsin

Re: Awol from AIT

Your son needs to know that being AWOL is a crime in the military, and if he's gone for more than 30 days, it becomes desertion, and then any law-enforcement agency in the Country can arrest him and keep him in jail until returned to the Army. His National Guard status is not relevant to the criminal aspects because he's in an "Active Duty" status now and thus, the "Regular" Army has jurisdiction.

If you can get him back by Monday, and can call his unit to let them know (a) that he's voluntarily returning; (b) explain what his problems/issues are; (c) his desire to be discharged, the odds are that they will not criminally prosecute him by court-martial, rather will just handle it administratively within his unit. If he's that close to graduating, if he can stick it out, then his National Guard unit can deal with his desire to be discharged.

Now, he has no legal entitlement to being discharged - he signed a contract that obligates him for 8 years and they've obviously spent money and time training him. But, many National Guard units do not want to deal with these types of issues and may very well give him what is called an "Uncharacterized, Entry-Level Discharge."

Good luck to you and your son.

Don Rehkopf

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