Article 87 of the UCMJ, missing movement, punishes a service member who fails to move with a ship, aircraft, or unit that the member was required to move with. Operations rarely run exactly on schedule, and movements are often pushed back. A natural question arises when a movement is postponed but the member still does not show up: does Article 87 apply, or does a delay take the conduct outside the article? The answer depends on a single decisive fact, whether a movement actually took place.
What Article 87 requires
Article 87, codified at 10 U.S.C. 887, makes it an offense to miss the movement of a ship, aircraft, or unit through neglect or design when the member is required in the course of duty to move with it. The elements are that the accused was required in the course of duty to move with a ship, aircraft, or unit; that the accused knew of the prospective movement; that the accused missed the movement; and that the member did so through design or through neglect.
Two mental states qualify. Design means the member intentionally missed the movement, and neglect means the member failed to exercise the care a reasonable person would have used to be present. The article does not require a specific intent to avoid duty in the way desertion does; ordinary neglect is enough.
The prerequisite: a movement must occur
The core of the question lies in an element that is easy to overlook. There can be no missing of a movement unless a movement actually happens. If the ship sails, the aircraft departs, or the unit moves, and the member is not there, the offense can be complete. If the movement never occurs, there is nothing to miss, and Article 87 does not apply.
This is why postponement requires careful analysis. Postponement is not a single concept. It covers at least two materially different situations, and they lead to opposite results.
Postponed but the movement still happens
In the first situation, the movement is delayed and then occurs at a later time. The departure slips from morning to evening, or from one day to the next, but the ship, aircraft, or unit eventually moves. Here Article 87 remains fully applicable. The member was required to move, knew of the prospective movement, and the movement took place. If the member failed to report and was therefore absent when the unit moved at the rescheduled time, the offense can be made out through design or neglect, just as it would have been at the original time.
A rescheduled departure does not reset the member’s obligation. If anything, a member who knew of both the original and the revised time and still failed to appear may have a harder time claiming the absence was an innocent mistake. The mere fact of a delay is not a defense when the movement ultimately happens and the member misses it.
Postponed indefinitely or cancelled
In the second situation, the movement is postponed indefinitely or cancelled and does not occur at all. Here the prerequisite fails. Because no movement took place, there is no movement to miss, and Article 87 cannot be completed. A member who fails to report for a movement that is then scrubbed has not committed missing movement, however blameworthy the failure to report may be on other grounds.
The same logic applies to a delay so open-ended that no movement ever takes place during the relevant period. Article 87 attaches to an actual movement, not to the abstract expectation of one. This distinction is what makes the postponement question turn entirely on what eventually happened to the movement.
The independent failure to report
It is important to separate the missing-movement question from the member’s failure to report. A member who fails to report can face liability under other articles even if Article 87 does not apply because the movement never occurred.
The most common alternative is Article 86, absence without leave, which covers failing to go to or leaving an appointed place of duty and absenting oneself without authority. A member who was required to be at a formation, a muster, or a duty location and was absent without authority may violate Article 86 regardless of whether any movement happened. Failure to obey an order to report can also implicate Article 92. So the cancellation of a movement does not necessarily mean the member faces no consequences; it means the conduct is charged under the article that fits, which is the absence offense rather than missing movement.
This also clarifies overlap. When a movement is merely delayed and then occurs, a member’s absence might satisfy both Article 86 (the unauthorized absence from the appointed place and time to report) and Article 87 (missing the movement that followed). Charging decisions then turn on the facts and on doctrines that prevent unreasonable multiplication of charges for what is essentially one episode.
Bottom line
Article 87 applies to a postponed movement only if a movement actually takes place. If the movement is delayed and then occurs, and the member fails to report and is absent when the unit moves at the rescheduled time, Article 87 is fully applicable and can be proven through design or neglect; the delay alone is no defense. If the movement is cancelled or postponed indefinitely so that no movement occurs, there is nothing to miss, and Article 87 does not apply. In that case the member’s failure to report is not unpunishable; it is simply addressed under the article that fits the conduct, most often Article 86 for unauthorized absence or Article 92 for failure to obey an order to report.
Disclaimer
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