I understand your position. Here's the thing. The pilots Commander has directed the pilot in question to be available to perform his/her military duty, and has further directed his/her civilian employer to make him/her available if there is a conflict. It's not a "stunt." It's military necessity.

I would love a PEK trip. Sounds mucho productive. I'd be crazy to drop that trip to go hang out at the guard and lose money for a few days. If my unit had me in an upgrade program, or a particular course of training, I would be obliged to perform the military duty.

Some of the Commanders understand PBS and some don't. Some don't care. In the freight dog days of the 90's I had a chief pilot that would assign me trips to intentionally conflict with military duty in an attempt to make me resign my guard job, even though my seniority had me off.

It's a PBS thing. Prior to PBS, military leave was never an issue to the best of my research either at CAL, or UAL. The only reason it's an issue now, is because we have Carmen PBS and it's rule sets and hold over language from the CAL ways and days.