screenshot from report at 11alive.com

Perhaps they are meeting in Disney World?

A local news report in Georgia reported Saturday that seven “military trainees from Afghanistan have disappeared over the course of about two weeks.” Aaron Diamant of WSB-TV in Atlanta reported that “two trainees disappeared from Fort Benning, one from Fort Lee, Virginia and Little Rock, Arkansas…Two weeks later, one walked away from Fort Gordon and two more from Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.”

Christopher Hopper of Georgia’s 11alive wrote that in addition the currently most recent batch of AWOL Afghans, “more than two dozen Afghan military trainees…have gone AWOL in the last decade.” The AWOL Afghans were part of a Department of Defense training program for foreign soldiers.

In a written statement a Homeland Security spokesperson told Diamant,

“ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations is aware of the situation, and is actively working to locate these individuals in coordination with the State Department and the Department of Defense.”

How comforting.

Inexplicably, Commander Patrick Evans from the U.S. Navy Defense Press Operations assured Americans that the “majority of Afghans” do not go AWOL but “return to their country” after they “complete their training.”

He said, “it is important to note that the majority of Afghans who train in the U.S. successfully complete their training and return to their country.  However, there have been occasions where IMSOs have learned of plans to go AWOL. In some of those cases, those students have been returned immediately to their country.”