Dereliction of duty is a specific offense under
United States Code Title 10,892. Article 92 and applies to all branches of the US military. A service member who is derelict has willfully refused to perform his duties (or follow a given order) or has incapacitated himself in such a way that he
cannot perform his duties. Such incapacitation includes the person falling asleep while on duty requiring wakefulness, his getting drunk or otherwise intoxicated and consequently being unable to perform his duties, shooting himself and thus being unable to perform any duty, or his vacating his post contrary to regulations. Article 92 also applies to service members whose acts or omissions rise to the level of
criminally negligent behavior. The first such case charged occurred during
World War II, when
Army Air Force Lieutenants William Sincock and Theodore Balides were
court-martialed for dereliction of duty when they mistakenly dropped bombs on
Zürich, a city of
Switzerland, which was a neutral country during that war. Both men were later acquitted.