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U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was promoted while held prisoner by the Taliban, said he wants to be recognized by his old rank, according to a senior U.S. official. "In his mind, he's a Pfc," the official told CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr on Sunday. Now in the beginning of the lengthy road to reintegration after his exchange for five Taliban commanders previously held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, Bergdahl is letting those around him know he still feels like a Pfc, regardless of his in-absentia promotion. The U.S. official could not confirm to CNN whether...

This Bergdahl swap is emitting a growing stench that is more apparent to those who are serving and those who have served. A huge question is why those who served in Bergdahl’s squad, platoon and company may have been intimidated into silence by being required to sign Non-Disclosure-Agreements by their superiors. My take on that is that the Army and the Obama administration were embarrassed by the desertion and probable defection of an American G.I. in Afghanistan. Knowing what I have learned in the past five years about this “most transparent” administration, they were eager to avoid the negative publicity...

The platoon was, an American military official would assert years later, “raggedy.” On their tiny, remote base, in a restive sector of eastern Afghanistan at an increasingly violent time of the war, they were known to wear bandannas and cutoff T-shirts. Their crude observation post was inadequately secured, a military review later found. Their first platoon leader, and then their first platoon sergeant, were replaced relatively early in the deployment because of problems. But the unit — Second Platoon, Blackfoot Company in the First Battalion, 501st Regiment — might well have remained indistinguishable from scores of other Army platoons in...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) It is well established now that Bowe Bergdahl, the Army sergeant for whom Barack Obama traded five top Taliban jihad commanders to get him out of captivity in Afghanistan, is a deserter. But there are also numerous indications that Bergdahl is something even worse: a traitor to the United States of America. Although the White House continues to ignore the evidence that Bergdahl deserted, every day new revelations make the case increasingly compelling. According to Colonel David Hunt, Bergdahl “called his unit the day after he deserted to tell his unit he deserted.” Nathan Bradley Bethea, a former infantry...

Chris Matthews Is Not a Fan of This Bowe Bergdahl Deal MSNBC’s Chris Matthews doesn’t seem to have gotten the channel’s memo on the Bowe Bergdahl deal. Many liberal pundits on his network have shown nearly lockstep support for the Obama administration’s handling of the trade of five Taliban commanders for Bergdahl, who’s been accused of desertion by many of his fellow soldiers. However, Matthews, usually a huge fan of the president, has sharply criticized the cost of the trade, the national security consequences of releasing dangerous “Johnnies” as he put it, the actions of Bergdahl himself and the legality...

"If I've lost Neuman, I've lost Middle America." That's how we imagine President Obama reacting to being scathed by MAD magazine. The Usual Gang of Idiots tweeted a parody poster yesterday for "Barack Obama's Unfortunate New Movie," titled "Trading Private Bergdahl." The tag line: "They got five Taliban leaders. We got one deserting weasel. The mission is a disaster." Obama is depicted as the lead actor, with the Taliban quintet in supporting roles. The picture is rated "NC" for "No Congressional Approval." How in the world did an administration known for political competence, if for no other kind, manage to...

A former Veterans Affairs official apologized Thursday for suggesting that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl may have left his post in Afghanistan five years ago because he was surrounded by “psychopaths.” “While I just wanted to make the point that the public should wait before passing judgment, I unfortunately used my own poor judgment in choosing inappropriate language that many view as disparaging to U.S. service members,” Brandon Friedman, who currently serves as a spokesman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told BuzzFeed. “That was certainly not my intent and I regret making the comments on my personal account...

Emails sent to Hailey City Hall asked the city not to celebrate Sergeant Bowe Bergadahl as a hero and called him a traitor and a deserter. A lot of the messages talked about remembering the soldiers they said died looking for Bergdahl while the rest of Hailey will celebrate. One email reads, 'I've an idea....send an invitation to the families of the six honorable soldiers killed trying to find him on his 'walk a bout'. Another email pointed out that with all the people claiming to be in Bergdahl's unit in the Army, there would be 4,000 soldiers in one...

The hometown of U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl has canceled a rally planned for later this month celebrating his release from five years of Taliban captivity, a municipal official told Reuters on Wednesday, amid allegations that he was a deserter.

SNIP The buzz isn’t just because Bergdahl had been held in captivity since going missing in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009. It’s because it is widely believed that he walked off his base in a war zone with no plans to return. Doing so would be desertion, a crime in the military in which individuals leave their unit with no plans to return, or quit to avoid hazardous duty or “important service.” SNIP What makes Bergdahl’s case so unusual in modern times is that he disappeared while in a war zone. There are remarkably few known cases in recent years...

Bergdahl's hometown is carrying on with a celebration for the returned sergeant at the end of the month, despite a rising backlash A rally in U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s Idaho hometown celebrating his release after nearly five years of captivity will go on as planned, despite growing questions about the circumstances of the soldier’s capture. The joy over the soldier’s return among residents of the small mountain community of Hailey, Idaho has been dampened by claims that he abandoned his post. Some have also claimed that the subsequent search for Bergdahl cost the lives of up to six soldiers,...

Controversy has surrounded newly freed Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl since his release from Taliban captivity, with some in the military, including members of his own unit, claiming he is a deserter, not a war hero. But Sherry Horton knows a different Bergdahl than the one the world has come to see in the chilling proof of life videos the Taliban released. "He's a very interesting guy, he was very quiet, he was an observer," Horton said. Horton, the artistic director of Sun Valley Ballet in Idaho, said she was Bergdahl's ballet teacher and later, she became his roommate in his...

Obama swapped five Taliban for Bowe Bergdahl. What will he trade for the three other Americans being held in Afghanistan?The Obama administration's controversial decision to swap five senior Taliban figures for the military's lone prisoner of war, Bowe Bergdahl, is putting new pressure on the White House to do more to free the three other American citizens who have been missing in Afghanistan or Pakistan for years but have drawn little attention in Washington. The American civilians thought to be in captivity include Caitlin Coleman, an American citizen who, along with her Canadian-born husband Josh, disappeared in Afghanistan in October...

If America's newly free POW really was a deserter, the White House is in deep trouble.On Sunday, National Security Advisor Susan Rice said former American prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl served with "honor and distinction" before he was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Two days later, the secretary of the Army said the branch will investigate whether Bergdahl deserted his fellow soldiers -- an allegation that if true would transform the public perception of the POW and drastically complicate the White House's attempts to defend its prisoner exchange, which involved the release of five Taliban operatives from Guantanamo Bay....

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is reportedly scheduled for a promotion. CNN’s Barbara Starr reports that a defense official said that Bergdahl will be promoted because he has not been classified as a deserter. The official also told CNN that the Army needs to hear from Bergdahl as to why he wandered away from base and how he got captured.. Bergdahl was promoted twice after he was taken prisoner in June 2009. He was promoted to the rank of specialist in June 2010 and then sergeant in June 2011. Bergdahl is hospitalized at a U.S. military in Germany as questions mount...

Bowe Bergdahl left a note saying he had gone to start a 'new life' and a former comrade broke his military gagging order today to tell MailOnline of the jaw-dropping moment he discovered the Taliban POW had walked off from their Afghanistan base. That revelation came just hours before two top government officials confirmed that there will be a new, full investigation into Bergdahl's disappearance. The soldier, who requested anonymity as he is still in the military, said: ‘Everyone looked at me like I was crazy but I was right, he had walked off.’ The New York Times reported Bergdahl...

(CNN) - Former Army Sgt. Evan Buetow was the team leader with Bowe Bergdahl the night Bergdahl disappeared. "Bergdahl is a deserter, and he's not a hero," says Buetow. "He needs to answer for what he did." Within days of his disappearance, says Buetow, teams monitoring radio chatter and cell phone communications intercepted an alarming message: The American is in Yahya Khel (a village two miles away). He's looking for someone who speaks English so he can talk to the Taliban. "I heard it straight from the interpreter's lips as he heard it over the radio," said Buetow. "There's a...

The deadly rescue mission in Afghanistan in 2002 began when Petty Officer First Class Neil C. Roberts, a member of the Navy’s classified SEAL Team Six, fell out of a helicopter that came under enemy fire as it tried to land on the snowy ridge line of an 11,000-foot mountain. Petty Officer Roberts was swarmed by Qaeda fighters almost immediately, and was nearly certain to die, but teams of Special Operations troops and Army Rangers were sent to the mountain in an attempt to rescue him. By nightfall, seven American troops had died on the jagged rocks that came to...

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl could face up to five years in prison if he is found to be a deserter, but an expert in military prosecutions says a planned inquiry by the Army could just be an attempt to buy time. Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School, said by phone Tuesday that the military may want to wait for temperatures to cool on Capitol Hill and for Army leaders to “get their head wrapped around this situation.” Military officials told NBC News on Tuesday that they are preparing a high-level inquiry into the personal conduct of...

In his five years of captivity, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was never listed by the Pentagon as a prisoner of war. Nor has the U.S. applied that term to any of its Taliban prisoners — including the five senior Taliban figures who were released last weekend from detention at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in exchange for Bergdahl’s freedom. A look at how that process works: