{"id":17214,"date":"2020-08-07T15:49:41","date_gmt":"2020-08-07T15:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/08\/07\/army-leaders-are-debating-how-to-categorize-soldiers-who-go-missing\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T01:42:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:42:43","slug":"army-leaders-are-debating-how-to-categorize-soldiers-who-go-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/your-army\/2020\/08\/07\/army-leaders-are-debating-how-to-categorize-soldiers-who-go-missing\/","title":{"rendered":"Army leaders are debating how to categorize soldiers who go missing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/news\/your-army\/2019\/10\/15\/army-chief-new-talent-management-will-start-with-officers-then-go-to-enlisted\/\" target=_blank>Army chief of staff<\/a> and service secretary have been discussing potential changes to how units report soldiers missing and how they look for troops who disappear from formations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Service members who are absent without leave for more than 30 days can be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/news\/your-army\/2018\/03\/28\/the-army-marked-this-soldier-as-a-deserter-but-he-had-actually-died-in-a-car-crash-on-post\/\" target=_blank>listed as deserters<\/a>. The offense is typically associated with intentionally slipping away from one\u2019s duty station, but disappearances that involve foul play complicate the practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis has been a topic of debate at the highest levels of the Army for the last several weeks \u2014 our reporting policies associated with a soldier,\u201d Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told reporters Thursday while visiting Fort Hood, Texas. \u201cAre they AWOL? Are they DUSTWUN [duty status\u2014whereabouts unknown]? What are they and when do you make these determinations? I think we do need to take a very hard look at that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There have been instances in which soldiers were listed as deserters, only to have their names later cleared. A recent example was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/news\/your-army\/2020\/07\/08\/family-hopes-autopsy-will-help-strike-dead-fort-hood-soldiers-name-from-deserter-list\/\">Pvt. Gregory Morales<\/a>, a Fort Hood soldier who disappeared days before he was set to be discharged from the Army and was later found dead off base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Morales was listed as a deserter last summer. But the Army ultimately struck his name from the list after his remains were found nearly a year later and local police said they suspected foul play in his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/your-army\/2020\/07\/15\/dead-soldier-formerly-listed-as-awol-is-finally-taken-off-list-of-deserters\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"231\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screen-Shot-2020-07-08-at-15.11.58.png.png?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Dead soldier, formerly listed as AWOL, is finally taken off list of deserters<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">The mother of Pvt. Gregory Morales says she has \u201cfought from Day One\u201d with investigators from the Army and other agencies, who repeatedly told her that Morales was most likely AWOL.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cGen. [James] McConville, our chief of staff, and I have talked about this at length, of just how we do that, how we continue to look for our soldiers when they end up missing,\u201d McCarthy said Thursday. \u201cSo we\u2019re going to take a look at that and we may make a change related to that downstream.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Morales was last seen in August 2019. His unit, the 1st Cavalry Division, \u201cdropped\u201d him from their accountability rolls after he had been missing for a month, officials at the unit said previously. However, Morales\u2019 remains were ultimately discovered in a field just miles from the central Texas installation this June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Morales\u2019 mother, Kim Wedel, has previously told Army Times that she \u201cfought from Day One\u201d with military investigators and local police who told her there was no evidence anything bad happened to her son. She disagreed, citing the fact that he disappeared with no money just days before he was set to be discharged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Army CID agents recovered the car Morales was last seen driving, but he was not with it. Wedel said she was not told Morales\u2019 vehicle had been recovered until the family found a Carfax report in May that showed it was in Dallas in December and sold at auction. When Wedel called Army CID, officials acknowledged they had already recovered the car in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/your-army\/2020\/08\/06\/murder-sexual-harassment-rates-at-fort-hood-among-highest-in-the-service-army-secretary-says\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP20195854672089.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Murder, sexual harassment rates at Fort Hood among highest in the service, Army secretary says<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">\u201cWe\u2019re getting an outside look to help us to get to those root causes and understand them,\u201d said Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou don\u2019t think that would be something to tell us? Why keep that a secret?\u201d Wedel recalled during an interview last month. \u201cThat was the first time that they even came close to admitting they might have screwed up, and maybe something did happen to him since they recovered the car and he wasn\u2019t with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In mid-July, the Army finally reinstated Morales to reflect he was on active duty at the time of his death, clearing the way for the deceased soldier to receive a burial with military honors, his mother said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Situations like those appear to be the focus of the discussions that McCarthy acknowledged were underway, though he did not specifically reference Morales\u2019 case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Army secretary made the remarks to reporters at the end of a two-day visit to Fort Hood. He was there to engage with local civilian and military leadership and to conduct \u201csensing sessions\u201d with enlisted soldiers and junior officers, the post said in a press release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During McCarthy\u2019s visit, he discussed the upcoming command climate review that will look for the \u201croot causes\u201d of why violent crime rates are so high at Fort Hood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThis has been a topic of debate at the highest levels of the Army for the last several weeks,&#8221; the Army secretary 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By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Army leaders are debating how to categorize soldiers who go missing - Army Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cThis has been a topic of debate at the highest levels of the Army for the last several weeks,&quot; the Army secretary said.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Army leaders are debating how to categorize soldiers who go missing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cThis has been a topic of debate at the highest levels of the Army for the last several weeks,&quot; the Army secretary said.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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