Hmmm, never been in the military but my dad was. I think I remember him telling me there’s this thing called “chain of command”. You don’t do squat w/o permission, especially go to headquarters on your own. If that’s the best he’s got he’s toast............hopefully.
Having been a draftee during WWII and with 1/2 semester of college smarts under my belt I learned the lesson of the chain of command. In basic training at Fort Hood I was doing OK for a small size G.I.. Apparently during the weeks of training the Company COs are supposed to be looking for possible officer material to go to OCS. Well one day I was told to put on clean khakis and report to the CO headquarters for OCS interview. I had my interview and went back to the barracks. It was just a few minutes until I was told to report to the orderly office. When I walked into the room I could see the top dog sgt. was not going to be very friendly. He immediately called me to order and read me the riot act about not going through him before going to the OCS interview and that I violated Army protocol. At that time I learned that Army personnel are not always on the same train. I spent many hours on KP duty after the incident. I did not make it to OCS, probably a lot to do with the fact I told the Officers on the interview board my first priority was to go and kill as many Japs as I could to avenge my brother’s death on Okinawa. I ended up going to Leyte.
After looking at the explanation...I’d put it in this prospective.
You get into issues in west Memphis...no car...no gun....and you have to walk through the heart of Memphis and travel by foot to six miles east of city-center....a twelve-mile walk, after dark. What are the odds you will be alive by tomorrow morning? Why would you do such a stupid thing?
In a civilian court, it might be convincing to half the jury members and at least get you an acquittal. This is a jury composed of military members who’ve all done combat duty (it’ll be impossible to find a jury without that experience). These guys simply won’t believe the story.
The gimmick to this....Bergdahl’s lawyer wants to spend two or three weeks just talking about the unit, it’s morale, it’s commander and it’s negatives. The case is about a guy who put his gun down, walked out of camp, and asked for directions to the Taliban. As long as the judge keeps the case focused on that....this long fraudulent discussion over the unit won’t occur.
If he’d walked out of the camp with a rifle...things would be different and he could use this fake defense strategy to a minor degree.