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We Lost Soldiers in the Hunt for Bergdahl, a Guy Who Walked Off in the Dead of Night
The Daily Beast ^ | 2014-06-14 | Nathan Bradley Bethea

Posted on 06/02/2014 5:29:49 AM PDT by justlurking

For five years, soldiers have been forced to stay silent about the disappearance and search for Bergdahl. Now we can talk about what really happened.

It was June 30, 2009, and I was in the city of Sharana, the capitol of Paktika province in Afghanistan. As I stepped out of a decrepit office building into a perfect sunny day, a member of my team started talking into his radio. “Say that again,” he said. “There’s an American soldier missing?”

There was. His name was Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, the only prisoner of war in the Afghan theater of operations. His release from Taliban custody on May 31 marks the end of a nearly five-year-old story for the soldiers of his unit, the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. I served in the same battalion in Afghanistan and participated in the attempts to retrieve him throughout the summer of 2009. After we redeployed, every member of my brigade combat team received an order that we were not allowed to discuss what happened to Bergdahl for fear of endangering him. He is safe, and now it is time to speak the truth.

And that the truth is: Bergdahl was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down.

(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; awol; bergdahl; bobbergdahl; bowebergdahl; deserter; gitmo
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I was astonished to find this article on the Daily Beast. Anything about politics on this site is generally leftist.

If this story is bleeding out into the left-wing press, it may explode. I think you may see even Obama's core supporters start to desert him.

1 posted on 06/02/2014 5:29:49 AM PDT by justlurking
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To: justlurking
Geez I wonder how Obama feels about this?


2 posted on 06/02/2014 5:35:31 AM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: justlurking

How did a PFC achieve the rank of Sgt?!


3 posted on 06/02/2014 5:35:40 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232 ((VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!))
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To: justlurking
Geez I wonder how Obama feels about this?


4 posted on 06/02/2014 5:35:48 AM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: jsanders2001

Obviously considers their son a hero. Not for being “captured” but for converting to Islam...


5 posted on 06/02/2014 5:37:14 AM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: jsanders2001

Now that Deserter Bowe is back...will his father shave his Taliban beard


6 posted on 06/02/2014 5:37:15 AM PDT by RummyChick
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To: All
Here's another article from the Daily Beast that is more representative of the usual leftist drivel:

Bowe Bergdahl Is the Right’s New Benghazi

The closing paragraph:

But of course, that doesn’t matter to the right. No one outside their base cares much about Benghazi, but that hasn’t stopped them. They’ll keep pursuing Benghazi mostly to see if they can pin anything on Hillary, but when it comes to wet impeachment dreams, Benghazi may have just been pushed to the back seat. The crazy never stops.

7 posted on 06/02/2014 5:38:43 AM PDT by justlurking (tagline removed, as demanded by Admin Moderator)
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To: Red_Devil 232
How did a PFC achieve the rank of Sgt?!

He was "promoted" after he was captured. You'll have to ask the Army why.

8 posted on 06/02/2014 5:40:14 AM PDT by justlurking (tagline removed, as demanded by Admin Moderator)
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To: justlurking
There is more to this story than we know yet.

Bergdahl is back in The Land Of The Free now.

Why hasn't he shaved off that scraggly excuse for a beard?


9 posted on 06/02/2014 5:40:58 AM PDT by Iron Munro (Black skin has morphed into Teflon.)
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To: justlurking
This story is growing legs, in part because of Cody's tweets Tom Coghlan ‏@TomCoghlan 1h @CodyFNfootball Tom Coghlan from London Times - we'd really like to speak to you if you have the time. Are you able to send a phone number?
10 posted on 06/02/2014 5:41:29 AM PDT by RummyChick
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To: Iron Munro
_ ‏@CodyFNfootball Jun 1 How many other prisoners have lasted 5 years? Taliban and Haqqani are ruthless. Expand Reply Retweet Favorite James Allan Frost ‏@JeanFroztyR 3h @CodyFNfootball No prisoners last 5 years under the Taliban, I served in the Army too.
11 posted on 06/02/2014 5:43:27 AM PDT by RummyChick
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To: RummyChick
Pony Express Afghan ‏@PonyExpressAfgh 9h @CodyFNfootball I know you are telling the truth bro. I was there. I got shot because of Bergdahl.
12 posted on 06/02/2014 5:46:26 AM PDT by RummyChick
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To: justlurking

Review & Outlook
Trading With the Taliban
Other Americans will pay the price for the terrorist hostage swap.
Updated June 1, 2014 9:06 p.m. ET

The reason these five weren’t previously released is because they were deemed “high” security risks by the Joint Task Force Guantanamo. They are the most senior Taliban commanders remaining in U.S. custody, and even the Obama Administration approved them for indefinite detention.

Two of them— Mohammed Fazi and Mullah Norullah Nori—were present at the fortress in northern Afghanistan in November 2001 when Taliban prisoners revolted against their captors in the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. CIA operative Johnny Michael Spann died in the melee, the first American casualty of the Afghan war. The duo are also suspected of war crimes for the mass murder of Shiites in Afghanistan before September 11.

Fazi was a close adviser to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader who has escaped U.S. capture and is believed to be living near Quetta in Pakistan. Soon they will be back in business plotting new attacks.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/trading-with-the-taliban-1401662373


13 posted on 06/02/2014 5:49:07 AM PDT by KeyLargo
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To: Red_Devil 232

POWs continue to get promoted and paid, and he was classified as one.


14 posted on 06/02/2014 5:50:42 AM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: RummyChick

Bttt


15 posted on 06/02/2014 5:57:44 AM PDT by Guenevere
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To: lepton

Nothing being said about those who died trying to find Bergdahl. Perhaps those who lost their friends and buddies will FIND Bergdahl and make things right.


16 posted on 06/02/2014 5:59:26 AM PDT by DaveA37
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To: justlurking

ALL POWs are kept on the rolls and promoted with time in grade. He may be prosecuted and busted, but I’m not counting on it.


17 posted on 06/02/2014 6:09:10 AM PDT by SJSAMPLE
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To: justlurking

Bergdahl ought to be sentenced to placing flags on the graves of those who lost their lives looking for him for the rest of his life.


18 posted on 06/02/2014 6:16:48 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (Haven't you lost enough freedoms? Support an end to the WOD now.)
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To: justlurking
I think you may see even Obama's core supporters start to desert him.

Obama's core supporters wouldn't support them even if he rounded them up and put them in death camps.

If Obama revealed that he was actually Satan in disguise, his supporters wouldn't desert him.

There is literally nothing that would ever cause Obama's core supporters to abandon him. They are more committed to their cause than Al Quada.

19 posted on 06/02/2014 6:22:34 AM PDT by IDontLikeToPayTaxes
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To: justlurking

Very fishy if you ask me..


20 posted on 06/02/2014 6:25:58 AM PDT by PLD
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