UCMJ Article 87: Missing Movement and Jumping from Vessel

Article 87 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice gathers two distinct offenses under one heading. The first, missing movement, punishes a service member who fails to depart with the ship, aircraft, or unit they are required to move with, whether the failure is deliberate or merely careless. The second, jumping from a vessel, punishes a service member who wrongfully and intentionally jumps into the water from a vessel in use by the armed forces. The two have nothing to do with each other in fact, but they share a statutory home today. Jumping from a vessel was once prosecuted under the general article, Article 134, as a service-discrediting act; the Military Justice Act of 2016, effective January 1, 2019, pulled it out of the catch-all and placed it in its own subsection of Article 87. Current materials that still file jumping from a vessel under Article 134 are describing the pre-2019 structure.

What the statute says

The governing text is 10 U.S.C. 887, and it is short. Subsection (a) provides that any person subject to the code who, through neglect or design, misses the movement of a ship, aircraft, or unit with which the person is required in the course of duty to move shall be punished as a court-martial may direct. Subsection (b) provides that any person subject to the code who wrongfully and intentionally jumps into the water from a vessel in use by the armed forces shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

Moving jumping from a vessel into its own article changed more than the citation. Under the old Article 134 framing, the government had to prove a terminal element, that the conduct was prejudicial to good order and discipline or was service-discrediting, on top of the act itself. As an enumerated offense under Article 87, the conduct is criminal on its statutory terms without that separate terminal proof. That is one reason the relocation matters for anyone trying to state the elements correctly.

Missing movement: the elements and the design and neglect divide

To prove missing movement, the government must establish that the accused was required in the course of duty to move with a ship, aircraft, or unit; that the ship, aircraft, or unit moved; that the accused knew of the prospective movement; and that the accused missed it through design or through neglect. The knowledge requirement is why notification evidence carries so much weight. Orders, deployment rosters, briefing sign-in sheets, and command messages are how the prosecution shows the accused knew the movement was coming, and a genuine breakdown in the unit’s notification can undercut the case.

The line between design and neglect sets the severity. Design means an intentional failure, a decision not to make the movement. Neglect means a careless one, a failure to take the reasonable steps that would have put the member where they were supposed to be. A member who oversleeps, misreads a departure time, or simply fails to verify the details acts through neglect; a member who chooses not to deploy acts through design. The same missed flight can be either offense depending on what was in the member’s mind, which makes intent the central battleground in many cases.

A “movement” is the relocation of a ship, aircraft, or unit from one place to another, and it is not limited to combat deployments. A ship’s sailing, a unit relocation, or an operational flight all qualify. What generally falls outside the article is a routine individual transfer or temporary duty where the member travels independently rather than with a vessel, aircraft, or organized unit; the offense is built around moving with a collective, not around personal travel.

Jumping from a vessel: the elements

The elements track the statutory language. The government must prove that the accused jumped into the water from a vessel in use by the armed forces and that the act was wrongful and intentional. The vessel must be in use, whether at sea, at anchor, or in port. The offense is not about the splash itself but about the unauthorized, deliberate entry into the water from a working military vessel.

The word “wrongfully” again marks the boundary. Jumping in the course of an authorized man-overboard drill or a sanctioned swim call, jumping to rescue another person already in the water, or going over the side on a lawful order to abandon ship are not wrongful and are not the offense. What the subsection reaches is the voluntary, unauthorized jump that serves no legitimate operational or safety purpose. The reason the conduct is treated as criminal rather than a private choice lies in its consequences at sea: a person in the water triggers immediate man-overboard procedures, diverts the vessel from its mission, commits boats and rescue swimmers, and exposes both the jumper and the rescuers to drowning, hypothermia, and the hazards of the open ocean.

Maximum punishment

The statute fixes no number for either offense, leaving the ceiling to the President through the Manual for Courts-Martial. Under the Manual’s Part IV, missing movement through design carries a maximum of a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for two years. Missing movement through neglect carries a maximum of a bad-conduct discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for one year. The heavier ceiling for design reflects the difference between a deliberate refusal to deploy and a careless failure to be present. Jumping from a vessel carries a maximum of a bad-conduct discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for six months. For offenses committed on or after December 27, 2023, the 2024 Manual’s sentencing parameters frame the available range and the military judge imposes the sentence, so a current figure should be confirmed against the Manual in force.

How the offenses relate to neighboring articles

Missing movement is often discussed alongside desertion under Article 85 and absence offenses under Article 86, but the focus differs. Missing movement targets the specific failure to depart with a particular ship, aircraft, or unit at the moment it moves. Desertion requires the added intent to remain away permanently or to avoid hazardous duty or important service, and unauthorized absence under Article 86 turns on the fact of being absent rather than on a scheduled movement. A member who stays at the duty station after the unit sails has missed the movement but has not necessarily deserted; a member who vanishes intending never to return may have done both.

Jumping from a vessel has its own near neighbors. Where the jump is a means of trying to leave service for good, desertion may be charged; where it is a means of temporarily avoiding duty, unauthorized absence may fit. The Article 87 offense addresses the discrete act of going into the water from the vessel, while the absence and desertion articles address the broader intent behind leaving. The command’s handling of any such incident, including any mental-health concerns it reflects, may bear on disposition and on sentencing, but it does not change the elements the government must prove.

Sources

• 10 U.S.C. 887 (Article 87, Missing movement; jumping from vessel), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/887
• 10 U.S.C. 885 (Article 85, Desertion), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/885
• Manual for Courts-Martial, United States, Part IV (Punitive Articles), Joint Service Committee on Military Justice: https://jsc.defense.gov/

This article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal advice. It describes military law and procedure of public record, does not address any individual case, and does not create an attorney-client relationship.