If you're drawn to stories like wartime stories, you'll enjoy exploring more from Ballin Studios and Wondery,

like my other podcast, redacted Declassified Mysteries.

Both shows are available early and ad-free on Wondery Plus.

Start your free trial today.

Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.coed.

U.K. slash Wondery. That's audible.com. UK slash Wondery.

For those not familiar with the term AWOL, it means absent without leave.

While there are many reasons a person will choose to join the military,

if you're like me, you did it because you were fed up with working part-time jobs and had no direction in life.

That, and my good friend Zach roped me into it because he had also just signed up.

It's not like I didn't sort of know this when I signed the enlistment paperwork,

but one of the more interesting reality checks after joining the military

was finding out that I no longer had the freedom to travel whenever and wherever I wanted,

especially when I was still a junior Marine. Unless it was a weekend and even that

wasn't guaranteed, you always had to tell someone where you were going, why you were going, and when

you were going to be back. A leave request is basically like submitting a request for time off at work,

but if you don't do it in the military, you go to jail. Family emergency? Well, you just hope that your emergency leave request gets approved.

But you can't just leave.

And yet, some people do. Why?

Lots of reasons.

Maybe there is something serious going on and they are emotionally overwrought, not thinking rationally.

One sailor we knew was apparently just tired of being in the military,

...