A new U.S. Army directive orders commanders to act within hours — not days — when a soldier goes missing. Commanders now have three hours to classify a service member as “absent-unknown” and eight hours to notify the soldier’s family once the absence is discovered.
The change was issued by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll last week and is intended to streamline the often slow and inconsistent process associated with tracking soldiers with unknown whereabouts. The new policy involves law enforcement more quickly in these cases.
Under the updated guidelines, commanders are required to determine within 48 hours whether a soldier’s disappearance is voluntary or if it may be the result of something more severe. During this timeframe, Army leaders must alert local Army law enforcement, enter the soldier’s name into the National Crime Information Center database, and issue a “be on the lookout” notice while requesting assistance from local civilian police.
If the missing soldier is not located after two days, commanders must assess the situation by a “preponderance of evidence” to decide whether to change the soldier’s status to AWOL (Absent Without Authorized Leave) or to declare them missing under the casualty code DUSTWUN (Duty Status – Whereabouts Unknown). Additionally, any soldier indicating the potential for self-harm and not found within the initial 48 hours must be reported as missing according to the new policy.
Previously, commanders had a 24-hour window to account for a soldier before classifying them as AWOL, unless evidence suggested that the disappearance was involuntary. This revision comes in response to criticisms highlighting systemic failures in the Army’s handling of missing soldiers, particularly following prominent cases such as the disappearance of Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén in 2020.
Guillén was last seen on a Texas base, and the Army faced backlash for perceived delays in responding to her case. Her body was discovered months later, sparking an independent committee review which revealed a pattern of “inaction in critical areas,” labeling it a “paradigm of benign neglect.”
Natalie Khawam Case, the attorney for Guillén’s family, praised the policy update but expressed regret that it was implemented too late for her client. “If they had this policy in place at the time Vanessa went missing, the Army would have quickly contacted the police and actually started searching for her themselves,” she stated. While she acknowledged that there are no guarantees this change would have saved Guillén, she reflected, “You never know, it could have prevented her death.”
Eve Sampson, the author of this report, is a journalist and former Army officer who has covered conflicts globally for major media outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.
