Copyright John T. Reed 2014

One of my high school classmates just asked what I think about the Bergdahl mess. I told him I had written a bunch about it on Facebook. But he is not a Facebook member. So for him and other non Facebook member readers of mine, here are those posts. Because they were done over time, there is some redundancy.

The Bowe Bergdahl deal is outrageous. The guy defected to the Taliban. When you are in the U.S. military at the time you do that, it is also called desertion. We should not have spent 10¢ to get him back let alone traded multiple high Taliban officers for him. Now that we have, he needs to be court martialed for desertion. Has he been punished enough? We don’t know if he has been punished at all. He defected. Defectors are often treated quite well by the enemy. Try him and court martial him if he’s guilty then look at the pertinent sentencing guidelines If he is due 10 years, give him ten years. If he can present evidence he was treated like a prisoner by the Taliban, then maybe give him credit for those five years so he only have five more to go.
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To those who say being held by the Taliban was extremely bad so he should get credit for two U.S. prison years for each Taliban year, I simply point to how he BECAME a guest of the Taliban. He chose to. For him to claim being with the Taliban for the last five years was an extreme hardship for which he should leniency is like the guy who murdered his parents then asked the court for leniency because he was now an orphan.
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He claimed after he was with the Taliban that he was captured when he lagged behind in a patrol. I am not buying that. On a patrol, he would have had a buddy who is supposed to take care of him at all times, and vice versa. He also had a fire team leader who only had about five guys to worry about, and a squad leader with ten guys and a platoon leader with 40.
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Making sure you have everybody is constant in the military and especially when you go out on patrol. They had a couple of hundred guys on the mission that killed bin Laden—in the dark, with gun fire. how many were left behind? Zero.
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When one disappears during a patrol, the whole patrol goes nuts searching for him. During a patrol, each member of the patrol keeps the adjacent guys in sight so that at least one guy can see every other guy in the patrol. A combat patrol is not like a group of high school kids following the college student leader of a college campus tour. You don’t get separated from the patrol by “lagging behind.” I believe the evidence is whatever the last patrol he went out on, he returned to the base camp, and that he later left the base camp on his own at night. In our post Korean War wars, U.S. troops do not go “outside the wire” at night. It will surely get you killed or captured. Begdahl knew that when he did it. Being a moron does not preclude being a deserter, or excuse it.
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The Wikipedia write-up on how Bergdahl is about 95% convincing that Bergdahl preferred the Afghans and Pakistanis to his own unit and country. He defected. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowe_Bergdahl He was promoted to sergeant during captivity. He should have been busted to buck private in captivity.
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Another guy who should be court martialed is Obama for negotiating with terrorists, trading Taliban officers for a hostage. I think that may be against the law. Didn’t Reagan get in trouble for trading arms for hostages? And doesn’t common sense tell you not to trade multiple Taliban high-ranking officers for a moron deserter?
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We should have left him there. Apparently Obama is so pleased with how his reset button approach to Russia worked out that he is now using Bergdahl as his reset button with the Taliban. The guy is hopelessly out of his depth—if he even has any depth at all.

  • Frank Lundie · Friends with Van Hardenbergh

    Paste from someone this evening-
    I saw this on another post:
    Forwarded from Jeff Howard.
    "We were at OP Mest, Paktika Province, Afghanistan. It was a small outpost where B Co 1-501st INF (Airbone) ran operations out of, just an Infantry platoon and ANA counterparts there. The place was an Afghan graveyard. Bergdahl had been acting a little strange, telling people he wanted to "walk the earth" and kept a little journal talking about how he was meant for better things. No one thought anything about it. He was a little “out there”. Next morning he's gone. We search everywhere, and can't find him. He left his weapon, his kit, and other sensitive items. He only took some water, a compass and a knife. We find some afghan kids shortly after who saw an american walking north asking about where the taliban are. We get hits on our voice intercepter that Taliban has him, and we were close. We come to realize that the kid deserted his post, snuck out of camp and sought out Taliban… to join them. We were in a defensive position at OP Mest, where your focus is to keep people out. He knew where the blind spots were to slip out and that's what he did. It was supposed to be a 4-day mission but turned into several months of active searching. Everyone was spun up to find this guy. News outlets all over the country were putting out false information. It was hard to see, especially when we knew the truth about what happened and we lost good men trying to find him. PFC Matthew Michael Martinek, Staff Sgt. Kurt Robert Curtiss, SSG Clayton Bowen, PFC Morris Walker, SSG Michael Murphrey, 2LT Darryn Andrews, were all KIA from our unit who died looking for Bergdahl. Many others from various units were wounded or killed while actively looking for Bergdahl. Fighting Increased. IEDs and enemy ambushes increased. The Taliban knew that we were looking for him in high numbers and our movements were predictable. Because of Bergdahl, more men were out in danger, and more attacks on friendly camps and positions were conducted while we were out looking for him. His actions impacted the region more than anyone wants to admit. There is also no way to know what he told the Taliban: Our movements, locations, tactics, weak points on vehicles and other things for the enemy to exploit are just a few possibilities. The Government knows full well that he deserted. It looks bad and is a good propaganda piece for the Taliban. They refuse to acknowledge it. Hell they even promoted him to Sergeant which makes me sick. I feel for his family who only want their son/brother back. They don’t know the truth, or refuse to acknowledge it as well. What he did affected his family and his whole town back home, who don’t know the truth. Either way what matters is that good men died because of him. He has been lying on all those Taliban videos about everything since his “capture”. If he ever returns, he should be tried under the UCMJ for being a deserter and judged for what he did. Bergdahl is not a hero, he is not a soldier or an Infantryman. He failed his brothers. Now, sons and daughters are growing up without their fathers who died for him and he will have to face that truth someday."

  • John Mayo Glad you posted this. Media says nothing about desertion. One post I read said he disappeared with only a compass, no body armour or weapon, and asked some Afghan children how to find the Taliban. Supposedly his father made some outrageous tweets supporting releasing all Gitmo prisoners. So we trade five terrorists for a deserter. In the mean time a US serviceman rots in a Mexican jail and our government does nothing.

  • Mark Christoph A deserter is someone who leaves his post to go off and do his own thing. A traitor is someone who goes off with the enemy. This guy, if this is true, should be hanged. And yes, what Obama did was illegal and some Congressmen are already furious as they were not contacted or advised of what was going on. Do we finally have enough for impeachment here? The guy changes laws at whim, ignores laws at whim, and makes new ones at whim.

  • Teofilo Campeon I learned about this guy earlier this evening while watching the news. Had no idea he DEFECTED to the Taliban until reading your post. Sheesh. Shame on the media (one news show was local, one was national) for not telling the whole story.

  • Benjamin H. Klimkowski · Friends with Paul Lukehart

    petitions.whitehouse.gov

    Army member Bowe Bergdahl "who did not earn the rank of SGT" went AWOL / Deserte... See More

  • Jason Temporado Agreed 100%. Personally, I suspect Obama was trying to kill two birds with one stone. This lets him say at the end of the year that he got ALL combat troops out of Afghanistan, including the lone "prisoner", and gets rid of 5 more prisoners from Gitmo which is also on his agenda to shut down. Lucky those Taliban commanders will be stuck in Qatar for the next year at least.

  • Timothy C Brosnan This whole thing stinks. Again, he uses the military as props-in this case, to distract from all of the scandals. Something that alows him to say "hey look, I got this POW released, I'm not a bad guy, I'm doing a great job!!

  • Timothy C Brosnan This is like Bill Clinton all over again. When did he deploy the military? When he was in trouble at home. Also, even though he was gone for 5 years, wouldn't he still be considered active duty military until discharged? I ask, because he's walking around with long hair, and Muslim type facial hair. When the POW's were released from the Hanoi Hilton in 1973, even though they did not have military uniforms until they left Vietnam, they still had military bearing; clean shaven, haircuts, salutes to the officer in charge before boarding the plane. When they got off the plane back home, they were in uniform, with military haircuts, shaves, and crisp salutes to the officers greeting them. This guy is a deserter, a traitor, and should be subject to the UCMJ as a result. Is it any wonder the rest of the world is looking down on us with disdain and contempt?

  • John T. Reed The fact that the Republicans and media seem to be letting Bergdahl be treated as a POW and great American soldier support my complaints about the victim mentality that seems to be sweeping the U.S. military. We have reached the point where virtually all vets are regraded as victims just for serving. PTSD, homelessness, drug use. We lionize military personnel and give them medals for getting wounded, captured, or shot down.
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    Amputee vets used to wear prosthetics that resembled the arms or legs they lost, and/or wear clothing that did not put their stump on public display. Now the fact that they are missing a leg or arm is often highlighted with metal band replacements and the wearing of shorts. Victims can and do get a sort of victim’s vanity license plate boasting of their being wounded or a POW or a Pearl Harbor Survivor.
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    Disabled vets and former POWs need not be ashamed of that status—assuming they did not cause it through their own stupidity or carelessness. But there ought to be a happy medium between being ashamed of the disability and showing it off or trading on it or using it to seek attention and sympathy.
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    For Chrissakes, we can’t all be wounded warriors or psychologically-damaged mental cases! The purpose of a warrior is to win the war, not to lose in a way that garners tax-free compensation, notoriety, free drinks, maybe a political career (e.g., John McCain and Max Cleland), and endless sympathy.
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    I did not go off to West Point at age 17 looking forward to being a broken human being who got lots of sympathy. I wanted to help win any war that happened like my dad and uncles did in World War II. If I got wounded in a way that might be visible in some circumstances, like at the beach, I expect I would have worn a style of bathing suit or tee shirt or some such that concealed it, for the same reason I would not have paraded up and down the beach asking every stranger there, “Can I show you my war wound?”
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    It seems to me that amputated limbs, serious scars, and so forth bother those who observe them. You see small children shrink from such things when they see them. I would like to think if I had been wounded, that I would treat it as something to be acknowledged honestly if brought up by others, but not to be introduced into the conversation by me, visually or conversationally.
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    The reaction to Bergdahl is more of this “all hail the wounded warriors” insanity where we give anyone who ever put on a military uniform not only the benefit of every possible doubt, but also willful suspension of disbelief in the face of the evidence that the person in question was incompetent, negligent, careless, or treasonous. There is much talk of holding civilian bureaucrats “accountable.” How’s about we start holding U.S. military personnel accountable for things other than failure to be politically correct? How’s about we start holding them accountable for wounds or captivity that they caused by their own stupidity, incompetence, negligence, or misbehavior? How’s about we start holding them accountable for losing wars?

  • John T. Reed I deleted some comments here that were about the marine imprisoned in Mexico. Different subject. So far, I do not know enough about that situation to make an intelligent comment. I have no interest in going to Mexico and have not had for a long time. On the other hand, I am a Californian—the state that marine was in when he crossed into Mexico—and I have never had three guns including an assault rifle and lots of ammo in my car. So I will let that story be handed by the media for the time being. I believe Mexican prisons suck, but I am not ready to give the marine a pass because he is a marine.

  • Christopher Gershel Since President Obama became president, we have witnessed a seemingly endless stream of senior military officers who have either been removed from positions of great responsibility or were forced into retirement for privately, or daring publicly, to disagree with the positions of the administration. If this is true, and I believe history will support such a conclusion, how can any rational human being believe that this alleged POW even if he actually deserted to the enemy, will receive anything but, a welcome home. Any General Officer who might consider convening a court martial might better consider checking himself or herself into a mental health facility.

  • Mark Christoph Living near and working on a military post, there is an endless number of people here with "Veteran" license plates, "POW" license plates, and "Purple Heart" license plates, as well as big banners in the rear window that say "Army Retired", "Air Force Retired" or my favorite, "COMBAT VETERAN" in giant letters. I do not recall seeing ANY of that back in the 80s when I was in, or even in the 90s. We, the media, or whomever have created a massive culture of attention-seeking children. The media BTW is still not reporting that Bergdahl was a deserter or traitor. Wonder how long that will take to come out officially, if ever.

  • Geoff Lin For some background information, here's a piece written by a member of that BCT in 2009 when Bergdahl went missing.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/.../we-lost-soldiers-in-the...

    www.thedailybeast.com

    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.

  • Mark Christoph It finally showed up on Drudge today with links to NY Post and a few other major papers, but still didn't, as of this afternoon, see any MSM reporting Bergdahl's deserter status. This seems tailor made to get the VA off the front page.

  • Esmond Ai Some comedy about the situation http://terminallance.com/.../terminal-lance-conversion-rate/

    terminallance.com

    Terminal Lance “Conversion Rate”Jun 03, 2014MaximilianWhat is the going rate for... See More

Obama says he did not comply with the law requiring he give 30 days notice to Congress before releasing Guantanamo prisoners because there was not time due to danger to Bergdahl, etc.
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This is exactly the crap I wrote about in a web article titled “Good intentions and impatience substitute for constitutional authority.” http://www.johntreed.com/constitutionalauthoritygoodintentions.html
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Whenever Obama wants to circumvent the Constitutiton, he simply says “we don”t have time to wait” and violates the law. He has done it again in the Bergdahl case and will continue to do it until Congress stops him. And Congress is way too wimpy to do that.

Another thing I am quite fed up with and have been for years in the notion that the U.S. military never leaves a man behind, alive or dead.
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I was in the Army—at West Point and afterward in the 82nd Airborne Division and in Vietnam. I NEVER heard of any such rule. Indeed, it conflicts with the rule I DID here: First priority is accomplishment of the mission and second priority is the welfare of the men. And in that phrase, the word “men” does not refer to the remains of a dead man.
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This mythological and obviously stupid doctrine is now being used to justify trading five Taliban for Bergdahl. I wrote a web article about that years ago: http://www.johntreed.com/noleavebehind.html

John T. Reedposted to‎John T. Reed

Bret Stephens wrote a column today in the Wall Street Journal that is magnificently eloquent in its rage over the Bergdahl exchange. I believe you can read it on line by Googling its title: “The Bergdahl Dishonor.”
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Here is one of its many great paragraphs:
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“In Time of Obama, derelicton of duty is heroism, releasing mass murderers with American blood on their hands is a good way to start a peace process, negotiating with terrorists is not negotiating with terrorists, and exchanging Taliban commanders for a lone American soldier is not an incentive to take other Americans hostage but rather proof that America brings its people home.”

People keep calling Bergdahl a deserter. Defector is almost certainly more accurate. And although I have seen no direct evidence of it yet, given his repeatedly expressed contempt for his country and fellow members of his platoon, and his repeatedly expressed affection for the Taliban, it is almost certain that he told his “captors” everything he knew to help them kill or maim his previous comrades.
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Death is one punishment authorized by the Uniform Code of Military Justice for desertion during a “time of war.” Death is also a possible punishment for spying and for “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
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Article 3, section 3, clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution specifies that the giving of aid and comfort to the enemy is an element in the crime of Treason. Aid and comfort may consist of substantial assistance or the mere attempt to provide some support; actual help or the success of the enterprise is not relevant.
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Try him, convict him, and shoot him. Same should have been done with Lindh, but at least he was not a U.S. soldier when he pulled his fight for the enemy against Americans crap.
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Obama and Holder will let Bergdahl off with no punishment whatsoever, no question, because to do otherwise would make Obama look bad and the U.S. government under Obama never does anything that would make Obama look bad, even when required by law or the Constitution

  • John T. Reed Fox News says he may have been a collaborator. That is not the right word. That refers to working with enemy occupiers of your country.

    4 hours ago

    People keep asking why would Obama do such a stupid thing as this Bergdahl exchange. My guess is A. they decided as they always do that asking for forgiveness would more likely achieve their end than asking for permission and B. no one in Obama’s inner staff has anything but the tinnest ear on matters like military service, desertion, duty, love of country, the bonds between military “bands of brothers.”

  • People keep talking about Bergdahl being in captivity and his life being in danger and he couldn’t leave.
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    What we know is he was with the Haqqani Network in Pakistan. A Pakistani familiar with his situation said he taught the Haqqani how to play badminton and that he celebrated Christmas and Easter—Christian holidays, with them.
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    If he defected—indicating he preferred their company to that of his Army colleagues and their “government” to the U.S. government—it seems likely that he was probably being held against his will in terms of you can’t leave until we get something for you, but where can an American go in Waziristan?
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    It is quite possible that when six American soldiers died looking for him, he had his feet up on a desk playing cards and joking with his minders. So I don’t think he could leave because he was like a valuable object to be cashed in by the Haqqani which is known to be more of a criminal gang seeking money than a religious organization. But at least initially, indications are that he did not WANT to leave. He regarded his U.S. military unit more as jailers asd was wanting to be rescued from them by the Taliban.
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    Those six Americans may have died trying to rescue him from his new friends in his badminton class, not his jailers. How about we refrain from assuming he’s guilty until proven and we also assume he was with them not prisoner of them until that’s proven, too? It may be that Bergdahl entered into a conspiracy with the Haqqani to defraud America and was doing a bit of acting in videos that were released to pretend to be a badly treated prisoner of war. In other words, this all may be even worse than the most vehement critics are suspecting. We know nothing about his captivity yet people, including the staunchest critics of the deal, keep characterizing it as if we do. We KNOW he was with them. We can only speculate about the details of that.

John T. Reed shared a link.

Re Bergdahl desertion and how things have changed in America recently. One of my classmates at West Point deliberately flunked the running test (1 mile in 6 minutes wearing combat boots and long pants) to get into Ranger School. (http:/www.johntreed.com/ranger.html) The Pentagon recognized that no just-graduated-from-West-Point lieutenant should be flunking that test and ordered him to go back to ranger school after he completed his other already scheduled signal corps officer training. We had to pass that same test each spring during our four years at West Point.
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I was at the same signal school as he was albeit in a longer course. My classmate finished his course and left—for ranger school we assumed. Next thing we knew, we were called into a room and a representative of General Westmoreland, Chief of Staff of the Army, asked if any of us knew where the classmate was. “Ranger School,” we all answered in a Greek Chorus. “No,” he said. “That is where he is SUPPOSED to be but he did not show up.” We all looked at each other with arched eyebrows and said we had no idea where he was.
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He later turned up—in Sweden; said he was against the Vietnam War. My suspicion has always been that he was more against U.S. Army Ranger school than Vietnam, if he was even against Vietnam at all.
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I can’t say for sure what his motives were. Years later, he grew tired of Sweden and came back to the states. He was arrested, court martialed for desertion, convicted, and sentenced to hard labor at the Fort Leavenworth federal penetentiary.
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After he did his hard labor, he was dishonorably discharged. I believe he came to our 40th reunion and made a substantial cash contribution to the class gift to West Point.
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Note that he did not desert “in the face of the enemy” in Vietnam as Bergdahl did in Afghanistan. Nor did he defect to an enemy country or terrorist network as Bergdahl may have done. My deserting classmate was probably beloved by the anti-war left for what he did, but there was no serious discussion about whether he deserved to be court martialed for desertion, sentenced to hard labor, and dishonorably discharged. Contrast that rather routine prosecution and punishment with the way the Bergdahl mess is being discussed by the White House, military, and media.

  • Deserters leave their unit and run AWAY from the military. Defectors leave their military unit and run TOWARD the enemy.

John T. Reed

Growing up, I was told that Alvin York (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_C._York) and Audie Murphy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy) were heroes. Now, we are told that everyone who voluntarily puts on a U.S. military uniform is a hero, including Sergeant “Honor and Distinction” Bergdahl—even if he also voluntarily takes thet uniform off and voluntarily goes over to the enemy.
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So what does that make York and Murphy? Or have we taken the word that we used to recognize those kinds of guys, obliterated its meaning, and not created a replacement word? If so, that kind of suggests that we want more Bergdahls and have no need of Yorks and Murphys.

Alvin Cullum York (December 13, 1887 – September 2, 1964), known also by his rank, Sergeant York, was one of the most decorated American soldiers in World War I.[1] He received the...

The Obama Administration keeps telling us Bergdahl’s innocent until proven guilty and we have to wait until the investigation is over. When will that be?
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Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the day after the election…
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…the 2016 election that is.
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These things take time, you know. Especially when running out the clock has worked so well for them with Benghazi, the Simpson-Bowles Deficit Commission, Fast and Furious, NSA, IRS, VA, etc.

The truth is the Army has been investigating Bergdahl since before he defected, more than five years. But the Obama Administration always pretends hen there is a media story that they must first investigate, no matter how investigations have lready been done or are already under way. A brand new investigation is always their first step when embarrassed. There are hundreds of billions of dollars worth of shovel-ready projects available to enable Democrats to buy votes, but there are no shovel ready investigations. But they sure do shovel a lot of something in White House media briefings.

Susan Rice has served this country with DIShonor and distinction. Her distinction is being the most brazen and worst liar in an administration where that is high praise, indeed. And why wouldn’t she do it again after the first time got her promoted to National Security Advisor?

They are talking now about how Bergdahl conducted himself in captivity and Sotkholm Syndrome and trying to stay alive. One former military person on Fox News said you are taught to stay alive. Not when I was in. Unless it was different when Bergdahl was trained, he was told to abide by the Code of Conduct if he got captured. You can read the Code and its background at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_the_United_States_Fighting_Force
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Basically, the Code says to resist, try to escape, and so on. The POWs in the Hanoi Hiton tried their best to adhere to it and it was their guide for their behavior there. I do not think we had to memorize this, but almost. The words are extremely familiar to me. We had special training just on this and my impression is that was true of all U.S. military forces since the Korean War. It does NOT says to just stay alive or do what you have to do to stay alive. It tries to have POWs been stanch Americans who continue to escape and to refuse to go along with enemy desires as much as possible.

 

  • Esmond Ai Crazy guy: http://www.nbcnews.com/.../taliban-commanders-say-they...

    "The Taliban found Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl walking alone, acting abnormally and cursing his countrymen before they    ...See More

    www.nbcnews.com

    The Taliban found Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl walking alone, acting abnormally and cursin... See More

  • Mark Christoph When I was in and going through survival school, they instructed to resist to the best of your ability but you were not expected to allow yourself to be tortured to death. I believe this was in response to the Lance Sijan incident in the Hanoi Hilton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Sijan

    en.wikipedia.org

    Lance Peter Sijan (Serbian: ????? ?????/Lazar Šijan[1]) (April 13, 1942 – Januar... See More

  • Mark Vandendyke Survival is only one of the things you're supposed to do, along with Evade, Resist, and Escape http://en.wikipedia.org/.../Survival,_Evasion,_Resistance...

    en.wikipedia.org

    Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) is a program, best known by its... See More

  • Russ Lamarre · Friends with Mark Vandendyke

    He deserted. Everything related to his repatriation is simply a psyact to distract from the VA reducing costs by killing vets, and Benghazi, and the IRS electioneering, and NSA perjury/privacy violations, and... Oh you get the point!

  • I saw a group photo of Berdahl’s platoon tonight on TV. It had a 501 at the top of their unit emblem. “Run that back,” I told my wife. “That looked like a paratrooper unit.” Indeed it was; 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska
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    I was the commo platoon leader of the 3rd battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment in the 82nd Airborne Division in 1969. I recognized the loww 500 nuber as a parachute unit designation. The 3rd of the 504th was made famous by actor Robert Redford saying “Hail Mary Full of Grace” over and over while paddling across a river under fire in World War II.
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    In the scene Redford played the actual battalion commander of the battalion I was later in. The incident was true. The river was the Waal in Holland during Operation Market Garden. The movie was “A Bridge Too Far.”
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    Is it significant that Bergdahl was in the paratroopers? Not much. It just shows that he not only volunteered to wear the uniform, join the Army and also go to Afghanistan, he also volunteered to be a paratrooper, a more gung ho unit than plain old infantry. He was not just in the Army. He was a paratrooper. An all-volunteer unit within the all-volunteer U.S. military which contained mostly troops who chose NOT to volunteer for the airborne.
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    I wrote an article about the airborne units and training. I think jumping out of planes per se is way overhyped. But it is also true that the paratroopers in the Army are more gung ho and generally have fought better than regular infantry—possibly because they feel the need to live up to all their bravado, like the marines. Whatever the mental process, they tend to fight better. http://www.johntreed.com/airborne.html
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    It mainly suggests to me that Berdahl 1.0 was gung ho to be John Wayne. The Bradley Manning Berdahl is apparently a version 2.0 of him. He was 23 when he got captured; I’m guessing 21 when he entered the military given his still being a PFC when he was captured. Young people sometimes do stupid things that they would not have done when they were more mature, especially paratroopers and marines, who in my experience tend to be a bit more immature than their age peers in the non-gung ho units. But I am surprised at how old Bergdahl was when he was engaging in this stupidity. He is NOT entitled to be adolescently foolish at age 23.

     

    • Mark Christoph Paratroopers in remote outposts in mountainous Afghanistan. Makes sense to me. About as much sense as Marines driving amphibious vehicles over 100 miles across the desert to attack an Iraqi outpost over land.

    • Phillips Kimball I believe that Berghdahl was actually a "leg," assigned to the airborne unit as a filler, prior to their deployment to Afghanistan. As former airborne, I hope that was his status. In RVN with SF, we received jump pay without being required to actually jump. I never figured out the rationale behind that decision, but I gratefully accepted $110 bucks each month.

    • Phillip McGregor I think Phillips Kimball is right. I recall one of his squad saying he wasn't one of them, never jumped.

    • John T. Reed How about Navy SEALS at 9,000 feet altitude in a landlocked country? See my web article http://www.johntreed.com/comments-on-Lone-Survivor-movie...
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      In my article on paratroopers, I said we should have a few and maintain the school but having entir      ...See More

      www.johntreed.com

      On Saturday 1/18/14, I saw the Lone Survivor movie with one of my West Point and ranger school classmates. We are both also Vietnam vets. He was for a time the platoon leader of the tunnel rats in the Cu Chi area. We were both stationed in that III Corps area of Vietnam at the same time.

Every time an American is taken hostage from now on, Barack Obama will OWN it, along with his party members who did not denounce the Bergdahl deal.

  • Timothy C Brosnan I hate to say this, but I would NOT want to be an American citizen traveling around the world anymore, except maybe for Canada. Even that could be a bit iffy, as they seem to be soft on Islamic extremists living there. It is open season on Americans abroad from here on out.

  • Ari Mendelson And every one of those hostages will be ransomed. Provided he's a traitor.

  • Timothy C Brosnan He just told all the bad guys in the world; kidnap Americans, it pays. No wonder people like Vladimir Putin look down on Obama. You notice you don't hear of Russian citizens being kidnapped around the world.

  • Mark Christoph The Democrats will never accept responsibility for anything. They still call Vietnam "Nixon's war".

  • Chris Heller I don't have the url but during the dark days of the Beriut, Lebanon chaos when Reagan was president, some Russians were kidnapped. The way the Kremlin dealt with that sent a very strong message indeed.

  • Timothy C Brosnan Ships sailing off the coast of Somalia sometimes run up a Russian flag. Why? Because the Somali pirates have learned that the Russians are merciless against them. They don't go to Moscow for trials. They shoot them and toss the bodies overboard. A Russian naval officer said the ocean is a vast, dark place at night. I believe that's why Chechnyan terrorists have come here, because the Russian response to them is brutal. When Russian Spetsnaz goes after terrorists, they don't give a damn about collatoral damage, innocent civilians, none of that. If they have a terrorist in their sights, and you're in the line of fire, tough. They'll shoot through you to get them.

  • John T. Reed The pirate story is true. I read several books about the pirates and attended a briefing by a panel discussion of experts. Not that we should become like the Russians, but paying ransom, especially if you push our hostages to near death, is insane.

  • Timothy C Brosnan The Israeli's flew into Entebbe Uganda in 1976, to rescue their people being held by Palestinian and German terrorists, The terrorists were being aided by the Ugandan military, under Idi Amin. They believed that since Uganda was 2500 miles from Israel, they were safe from attack. The Israeli's took a huge gamble-many Israeli's wanted to give into the demands to swap hostages for terrorist leaders, and there was a lot of room for error. Israel took the risk, and rescued almost all of them. Nobody has attempted that sort of thing again against Israel that I'm aware of. Some in the UN condemned Israel for violating Ugandan territory, but I say that's tough, because Uganda involved themselves in the holding of hostages. Lesson learned. Give hostage takers an inch, they demand-and in Obama's case will get-a couple of miles. Obama has put a target on the backs of every American abroad by doing that deal.

  • Google “Meet Obama’s Kissingers” to read Kimberly Strassel’s excellent column on why Obama’s foreign policy is so lousy. She says before Obama, the President’s National Security Council used hold meetings that political consultants were not allowed to attend—too important and dangerous a subject to be left to political hacks. But under Obama, no one but political hacks is allowed in the meetings—like Susan Rice, Tom Donilon, and guys whose background is speechwriter, flack, or lobbyist.

Version 2.0 of Obama’s story on Bergdahl says he had to ignore the law about telling Congress because he was near death. Setting aside how they could possible know such a thing in the circumstances, this will become part two of the new additions to the terrorist play book against the U.S:
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1. Take as many U.S. military hostages as possible because the Americans will even go so far as to lose the war to get them back.
2. Do everything in your power to make the Americans think the hostages you take are near death, maybe even killing some, to increase the speed at which the American cave.
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Has anyone ever told the commander in chief that top priority is accomplishing the mission and welfare of the men is second? Or that rewarding the enemy for taking hostages and treating them badly will increase the number of hostages taken and endanger them more while in captivity? When are the American people going to figure out they put an idiot in charge of the U.S. military and foreign policy—twice!? He still has a 40% approval rating and maybe 45% with regard to his handling of the Bergdahl exchange!!?
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Universal suffrage needs to be revisited.

John T. Reed