How to stop a Soldier who goes AWOL for 28 days at a time?

Ricardo,

This goes back to what I have stated in previous posts about the politics of today's environment, they have taken the power from the NCOs and given it to the PVTs.

Prior to the Clinton administration, an NCOs word and 1 or 2 counseling was all a CDR needed to chapter a Soldier or put them in jail for going AWOL, especially if it was repetitive, but during the mid-90s all that changed. PC came into the picture and protected to guilty instead of the military as a whole, this is all about lawyers and protecting the guilty and not the innocent as it was supposed to be.

Back in 1984 when I was in Fort Sill, we had a Soldier who went AWOL, the federal warrant was issued, the US Marshalls tracked the guy down after about 19 days, arrested him and brought him back to the unit and turned him over to the MPs, we turned him over to his command, they gave him UCMJ actions and started the chapter process, he was gone in 10 days with a dishonorable discharge, that was how things worked and had worked for decades prior with the exception that some Soldiers spent some time in jail before being chaptered so the military got their time back equal to the AWOL time. But all that changed from 50, 60, 70 years etc. of it working the way it did to the PC and worse that you are now experiencing, if you don't have a multi-volume record of counseling's, psychological evaluations and profiles, medical evaluations, and so on, you can't even get an article 15 participation anymore let alone a chapter. Blame Congress, weak leadership and lawyers for all that has come our way over the last 15+ years for what you are currently experiencing.

I wish you luck with this Soldier and the issues, it will only continue, and will most likely result in a few things happening, the Soldier will be moved to another unit, you will PCS before anything is done, or nothing will ever come from it other than you getting frustrated in the end.