Bowe Bergdahl ‘deserted’ before capture on ‘latrine’, says fellow soldiers
A caller to The Blaze radio’s Doc Thompson show, a soldier called in to detail the disppearance of Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier involved in the controversial prisoner swap. A Wikileaks memo indicates he was nabbed while on a “makeshift latrine.”
Bergdahl’s captured appears to be a very controversial issue with his fellow soldiers.
“I was pissed off then and I am even more so now with everything going on,” said former Sgt. Matt Vierkant to CNN, a member of Bergdahl’s platoon when he went missing on June 30, 2009. “Bowe Bergdahl deserted during a time of war and his fellow Americans lost their lives searching for him.”
The caller to the radio show says many soldiers were shot in efforts to find Bergdahl and regularly “dogged the Army.”
At least six soldiers were killed in subsequent searches for Bergdahl, and many soldiers in his platoon said attacks seemed to increase against the United States in Paktika Province in the days and weeks following his disappearance.
Many of Bergdahl’s fellow troops — from the seven or so who knew him best in his squad, to the larger group that comprised the 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division — told CNN that they signed nondisclosure agreements agreeing to never share any information about Bergdahl’s disappearance and the efforts to recapture him.
Some were willing to dismiss that document in hopes that the truth would come out about a soldier who they now fear is being hailed as a hero, while the men who lost their lives looking for him are ignored.
A transcript of radio intercepts, publicly released through Wikileaks, indicates that Bergdahl, then 23, was captured while sitting in a makeshift latrine.
“We were attacking the post he was sitting,” according to a radio intercept of a conversation among insurgents. “He had no gun with him. … They have all (the) Americans, ANA (Afghan National Army), helicopters, the planes are looking for him. Can you guys make a video of him and announce it all over Afghanistan that we have one of the Americans?”
Rolling Stone magazine quoted emails Bergdahl is said to have sent to his parents that suggest he was disillusioned with America’s mission in Afghanistan, had lost faith in the U.S. Army’s mission there and was considering desertion.
Bergdahl told his parents he was “ashamed to even be American.” Bergdahl, who mailed home boxes containing his uniform and books, also wrote: “The future is too good to waste on lies. And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping fools with their ideas that are wrong.”
