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A public welcome home celebration featuring Grammy-winning singer Carole King in honor of freed POW Bowe Bergdahl in the tiny town of Hailey, Idaho was abruptly cancelled today. The official reason given was a concern for public safety, but MailOnline has learned that it was not the only reason the party was scrubbed. Today's decision follows a row that erupted in Hailey between Mayor Fritz Haemmerle and US Army Platoon Commander Jonathan Kennedy, who lives in Hailey. And Kennedy wasn't the only towns person who voiced disapproval of a celebration for the soldier under fire. Mayor Haemmerle wanted to throw...

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's hometown in Idaho on Wednesday canceled an event to celebrate his release after city officials were bombarded with angry phone calls and emails. *SNIP* The city said the June 28 event was canceled "in the interest of public safety."

What if the White House had chosen a low-key announcement of the Bowe Bergdahl swap?The best measure of whether President Obama cut a smart deal to free Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is what happens to the five Guantanamo Bay terrorists he traded away. Do they go (a) into retirement; (b) into battle against the United States; (c) or into five cold graves? The rest of what you're hearing about the swap is politics – thinly disguised as a legal and foreign policy debate. Unless you can predict the future, the smart move on such a complex story is to avoid an...

Controversy over the prisoner exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl — and over allegations he abandoned his Afghanistan post — has brought blowback on businesses in Hailey, Bergdahl’s hometown. The Hailey Chamber of Commerce has received hundreds of phone calls from people angry that the community had planned a June 28 “Bowe is Back” celebration for a possible deserter, Chamber Membership Director Kristy Heitzman said. The Chamber wasn’t organizing or sponsoring “Bowe is Back” but promoted the event on its Facebook page, she said. Organizers cancelled the event midday Wednesday. Some of the angry callers are veterans, Heitzman said. One...

Controversy over the prisoner exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl — and over allegations he abandoned his Afghanistan post — has brought blowback on businesses in Hailey, Bergdahl’s hometown. The Hailey Chamber of Commerce has received hundreds of phone calls from people angry that the community had planned a June 28 “Bowe is Back” celebration for a possible deserter, Chamber Membership Director Kristy Heitzman said. The Chamber wasn’t organizing or sponsoring “Bowe is Back” but promoted the event on its Facebook page, she said. Organizers cancelled the event midday Wednesday. Some of the angry callers are veterans, Heitzman said. One...

The town of Hailey, Idaho has canceled its June 28 event to celebrate the return of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl who was released from Taliban captivity nearly five years after he was reported missing in Afghanistan.The Idaho Statesman posted this news release from organizers saying the the event is canceled "in the interest of public safety." Since Bergdahl's release on May 31, the town of 8,000 has been inundated with negative emails and phone calls. "When the news of Bowe Bergdahl’s release was announced this past Saturday, the organizers joyfully declared that the event would be renamed Bowe is Back, and would...

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...

A rally in U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s Idaho hometown celebrating his release after nearly five years of captivity has been canceled amid growing questions about the circumstances of the soldier’s capture. The joy over Bergdahl’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, Reuters reports. Hailey’s city administrator, Heather Dawson said town officials called off the June 28 rally at the request of organizers. The town “will be...

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.

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...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Among the most tantalizing mysteries surrounding Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s departure from his U.S. military base in 2009 is this: Was he trying to find the Taliban? Or did he simply wander away and get captured? Politicians and members of the military have criticized the Obama administration’s decision to swap five jailed Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, saying the soldier may have deserted. Until now, few details have emerged about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance from his base. But The Washington Post has reached Afghan villagers who spotted Bergdahl shortly after he slipped away from his base. To them, it’s clear something...

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...

When Bob Bergdahl was formally introduced to America in the White House Rose Garden beside the President, he was startling to see and hear at first: the father had seemingly morphed into an Afghan tribesman, wearing a long beard and even speaking Pashto. The transformation of the former UPS delivery man was five years in the making in the mountain valleys of Idaho, sparked when his son Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan in June 2009. In the half decade that he and wife crusaded for their son's release -- finally won this past weekend...

When the news broke that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey would return to the U.S. and eventually to his family after five years of being held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan, Sun Valley-area people erupted with joy and relief. People called this newspaper, called their friends, and announced to perfect strangers that Saturday was a great day because of the news that the young soldier was coming home. People gathered spontaneously in Hailey where they hugged, shed tears and smiled at the same time. A valley-wide celebration was immediately scheduled for later this month. Americans are proud of...

The following is a listing of corporate sponsors supporting the homecoming of the self-professed America hating Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl who was traded for five top Taliban terrorists by President Barack Hussein Obama ... From BringBoweBack2014.com website: Sponsors Thank you to all our sponsors. The City of Hailey The Hailey Police Department The Hailey Chamber of Commerce Luke’s pharmacy Wood River Motors Silver Creek Ford Sun Valley Aminal Center Wayne Willich and Friends Brennans Carpet Hailey Auto Exchange Candace Ireland Insurance The Snow Bunny Tim Jeneson Insurance Valley Paint & Floor Mountain Lifestyles Property Services, Inc. Wood River Insurance Copy And...

In Hailey, Idaho, the hometown of freed U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl, the joy at his release has turned for some into shock and fear — the fear of picking up the phone. That's because some town officials have been deluged with angry calls from people who think that Bergdahl is an Army deserter or traitor who doesn't deserve a hero's welcome.

People in Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's hometown of Hailey, Idaho, say they're “shocked” by how quickly the captive soldier's homecoming has turned into a national controversy. Bergdahl was released Saturday after nearly five years in Taliban captivity. Since then, some fellow soldiers have accused him of being a deserter. Angry phone calls and emails have poured into Hailey's city hall, police department and the chamber of commerce since the weekend. Many online commentators have accused the 28-year-old soldier of being a traitor and a Taliban sympathizer. The backlash stems from reports that Bergdahl intentionally walked off his base in southeast Afghanistan...

Bob Henley, former pastor at the(ir) Presbyterian Church of the Big Wood, recalled how friends periodically would ask Bergdahl if he hadn’t crossed some line, if he hadn’t succumbed to some form of the captive-bonding Stockholm syndrome. But Bergdahl assured his friends he was just doing whatever he could to ensure his son’s release. “I guess you really had to be in his shoes,” Henley said. The five-year waittook a toll on both of his parents, according to friends and others . Bergdahl is fiercely intelligent, friends said, yet he dropped out of college, going to Idaho with his wife...

@daqeqa Agree! "Democracy" is a cult in the West. I think most of afgs see law in terms of sharia not secular democracy, man centric laws.