Posted on 06/11/2014 5:57:59 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Army sergeant and rescued Taliban prisoner Bowe Bergdahl has been caught up in a web of conspiracy theories and political noise since his handover in Afghanistan early last month, but those who know him are rejecting suggestions that he was a "a calculating deserter." The Washington Post today published excerpts from Bergdahl's journal, which he mailed along with a laptop and his copy of Atlas Shrugged, to his close friend Kim Harrison just before leaving his post and getting captured in the summer of 2009.
"Trying to keep my self togeather," he wrote, mixing philosophical musings and misspellings. "I'm so tired of the blackness, but what will happen to me without it. Bloody hell why do I keep thinking of this over and over."
Bergdahl, his friends said, "sometimes painted his fingernails black and identified with Japanese samurai warriors and medieval knights." He called himself "the lone wolf of deadly nothingness." He'd also been discharged from the Coast Guard in 2006 for psychological problems (he told friends he'd "faked it") but was taken by the Army anyway in the dark, two-war days of 2008.
"I"m worried," he journaled before being sent off to Afghanistan. "The closer I get to ship day, the calmer the voices are. I'm reverting. I'm getting colder. My feelings are being flushed with the frozen logic and the training, all the unfeeling cold judgment of the darkness."
Bergdahl also developed Ayn Rand–ian ideas about finding "complete freedom":
On June 27, he sent an e-mail to his friends titled “Who is John Galt?,” a reference to the hero of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” about individualism in a dystopian America.
“I will serve no bandit, nor lair, for i know John Galt, and understand . . .” Bergdahl wrote. “This life is too short to serve those who compromise value, and its ethics. i am done compromising.”
Three days later, Bergdahl walked off his post.
On the last page of his journal, the Post reports, Bergdahl imagined "a story about one going-crazy-to wander the earth alone."
All excellent points.
I do wonder if America as it is now is worth all the trouble I went through serving it earlier in my life. It seemed like it was worth it back then. Now, I’m not so sure.
Well let's accept that he is. What is he deserting from -- leftist America or traditional America?
There are those here that believe the military of today is full of patriotic, freedom loving, constitution defending soldiers.
I sometimes wonder. It was true under Reagan. I'm not sure it's true today.
I'll repeat what I wrote: the young today are very confused. What's the United States all about? What does it mean to be an American? What's special about this place?
Public educators were once responsible for helping the young become good adults, proud knowing they were Americans. After the leftists took over education, we get the opposite. And those kids carry their beliefs with them into the military.
Hey, that's my retirement plan.
All except for the being a woman part.....and the having a job part.
Leftist strategy: “Say Anything”
Going Galt in a Taliban infested desert is about as much of Darwin Award Candidacy as it gets.
Bowe was an excuse to dump prisoners at Guantanamo .......nothing more
This doesn’t surprise me.
His parents fit the profile. He fits the profile.
I know a few people like his parents because I go to a reformed church. They’re embarrassed to be patriotic for fear it might be idolatry, they love Ron Paul and Glen Greenwald and Lew Rockwell.... They hate middle eastern wars. He should never, ever have gone. It would never square with his confused upbringing.
The poor kid probably never learned to spell or write properly because his parents seemed to have put lofty ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas before discipline and hard work which creates self-esteem and good character.
I know too many young men like him. They become a burden to their parents and to their church, but both keep working on their behalf without demanding accountability. In some homeschools, I just see kids get away with too much and rule the roost.
I wish I knew the answer. His church’s response is to keep praying, but they see the warning signs and ignore them in covenant, homeschooling communitites because Daddy knows best.
Seeking out a Taliban hive in which to live is not even close to akin to going to Galt’s Gulch. Pathetic!
Blah blah blah
Bergdahl ping.
This clown is ate up with hisself, which explains Obama’s affinity with him and his freaky parents.
Hitler saw ‘Gone With The Wind’ 40 times and was said to be an above average poet; point being the sick mind can appreciate works of art as well as create them.
How many sick minds have read ‘Mein Kampf’? How many normal healthy minds have read it? Is there value in the statistical data of such questions?
Charles Manson interpreted Beatle songs as messages from God, etc. What value is added to our knowledge of the psychological health of people and kids who listen to Beatle music?
That the Washington Post decides to link Bergdahl with conservative or libertarian leaning philosophers is symptomatic of a sick corporate culture as their reporters sit around their cubicles wondering how to spin a monster as rising from the conservative camp; how ‘unbiased of them’.
Would they do this with say margin notes found from Bergdahl’s copy of the Koran? What if Bergdahl carried a copy of ‘Dreams Of My Father’? Would we hear about it?
And of course New York Magazine shares in spreading the Post’s vomit.
cool! mine is not a retirement plan... i dream of doing this right smack-dab in the middle of my prime--without telling anybody... :)
If you recall, the two freaks that shot cops in Las Vegas recently allegedly draped a "Don't Tread on Me" flag across one of the officers. Isn't that a Tea Party-affiliated icon (among other conservative things?
Is there a deliberate smear going on to pain these losers as right-wing and extreme? And a potential danger to society?
for the record: My plans for, ‘Going Galt’ NEVER involve the Taliban.
What a putz.
For crying out loud... ya think?????
Open your eyes! The two freaks in Las Vegas were kicked off Bundy Ranch because the militia caught onto them. They were also in attendance at several Occupy Wall Street protests. Nothing "Conservative" or "Tea Party" about them.
They were sickos who wanted to kill cops. The end.
And if the truth were to ever come out, we'd learn that Bergdahl was a heroin addict who kept stealing off his base to meet up with his dealers. Then he took off with them. Good Lord... just one look at that video of him being returned and seeing him twitch tells you you're looking a a junkie going through withdrawals. He hasn't been paraded before the media yet because he's probably in detox.
Quit listening to the media. THEY LIE!!!
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