They absolutely aren't looking for candidates who answer "none sir, I've never called in sick!"

Even assuming they can officially (or even unofficially) find out your sick calls, there's a lot of holidays in the year, especially when you add in big sporting events and such. Reasonable sick use by any measure will naturally fall over these some of the time.

What they are looking for IMO is that you don't call in sick when you are not sick, and you don't fly sick when you are sick.

Its really not more complicated than that.