OBAMA TRADED FIVE TERRORISTS FOR A DESERTER

Not only has Obama set a precedent that if you can capture an American soldier, we will negotiate with you, but he negotiated to get back a deserter who cost the lives of dozens of soldiers in their mission to find him. Obama and his minions want to give this douchebag a ticker tape parade.

Via The Daily Beast

We Lost Soldiers in the Hunt for Bergdahl, a Guy Who Walked Off in the Dead of Night

By

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.

On the night prior to his capture, Bergdahl pulled guard duty at OP Mest, a small outpost about two hours south of the provincial capitol. The base resembled a wagon circle of armored vehicles with some razor wire strung around them. A guard tower sat high up on a nearby hill, but the outpost itself was no fortress. Besides the tower, the only hard structure that I saw in July 2009 was a plywood shed filled with bottled water. Soldiers either slept in poncho tents or inside their vehicles.

The next morning, Bergdahl failed to show for the morning roll call. The soldiers in 2nd Platoon, Blackfoot Company discovered his rifle, helmet, body armor and web gear in a neat stack. He had, however, taken his compass. His fellow soldiers later mentioned his stated desire to walk from Afghanistan to India.

The Daily Beast’s Christopher Dickey later wrote that “[w]hether Bergdahl…just walked away from his base or was lagging behind on a patrol at the time of his capture remains an open and fiercely debated question.” Not to me and the members of my unit. Make no mistake: Bergdahl did not “lag behind on a patrol,” as was cited in news reports at the time. There was no patrol that night. Bergdahl was relieved from guard duty, and instead of going to sleep, he fled the outpost on foot. He deserted. I’ve talked to members of Bergdahl’s platoon—including the last Americans to see him before his capture. I’ve reviewed the relevant documents. That’s what happened.

Our deployment was hectic and intense in the initial months, but no one could have predicted that a soldier would simply wander off. Looking back on those first 12 weeks, our slice of the war in the vicinity of Sharana resembles a perfectly still snow-globe—a diorama in miniature of all the dust-coated outposts, treeless brown mountains and adobe castles in Paktika province—and between June 25 and June 30, all the forces of nature conspired to turn it over and shake it. On June 25, we suffered our battalion’s first fatality, a platoon leader named First Lieutenant Brian Bradshaw. Five days later, Bergdahl walked away.

His disappearance translated into daily search missions across the entire Afghanistan theater of operations, particularly ours. The combat platoons in our battalion spent the next month on daily helicopter-insertion search missions (called “air assaults”) trying to scour villages for signs of him. Each operations would send multiple platoons and every enabler available in pursuit: radio intercept teams, military working dogs, professional anthropologists used as intelligence gathering teams, Afghan sources in disguise. They would be out for at least 24 hours. I know of some who were on mission for 10 days at a stretch. In July, the temperature was well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit each day.

These cobbled-together units’ task was to search villages one after another. They often took rifle and mortar fire from insurgents, or perhaps just angry locals. They intermittently received resupply from soot-coated Mi-17s piloted by Russian contractors, many of whom were Soviet veterans of Afghanistan. It was hard, dirty and dangerous work. The searches enraged the local civilian population and derailed the counterinsurgency operations taking place at the time. At every juncture I remember the soldiers involved asking why we were burning so much gasoline trying to find a guy who had abandoned his unit in the first place. The war was already absurd and quixotic, but the hunt for Bergdahl was even more infuriating because it was all the result of some kid doing something unnecessary by his own volition.

On July 4, 2009, a human wave of insurgents attacked the joint U.S./Afghan outpost at Zerok. It was in east Paktika province, the domain of our sister infantry battalion (3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry). Two Americans died and many more received wounds. Hundreds of insurgents attacked and were only repelled by teams of Apache helicopters. Zerok was very close to the Pakistan border, which put it into the same category as outposts now infamous—places like COP Keating or Wanat, places where insurgents could mass on the Pakistani side and then try to overwhelm the outnumbered defenders.

One of my close friends was the company executive officer for the unit at Zerok. He is a mild-mannered and generous guy, not the kind of person prone to fits of pique or rage. But, in his opinion, the attack would not have happened had his company received its normal complement of intelligence aircraft: drones, planes, and the like. Instead, every intelligence aircraft available in theater had received new instructions: find Bergdahl. My friend blames Bergdahl for his soldiers’ deaths. I know that he is not alone, and that this was not the only instance of it. His soldiers’ names were Private First Class Aaron Fairbairn and Private First Class Justin Casillas.

Though the 2009 Afghan presidential election slowed the search for Bergdahl, it did not stop it. Our battalion suffered six fatalities in a three-week period. On August 18, an IED killed Private First Class Morris Walker and Staff Sergeant Clayton Bowen during a reconnaissance mission. On August 26, while conducting a search for a Taliban shadow sub-governor supposedly affiliated with Bergdahl’s captors, Staff Sergeant Kurt Curtiss was shot in the face and killed. On September 4, during a patrol to a village near the area in which Bergdahl vanished, an insurgent ambush killed Second Lieutenant Darryn Andrews and gravely wounded Private First Class Matthew Martinek, who died of his wounds a week later. On September 5, while conducting a foot movement toward a village also thought affiliated with Bergdahl’s captors, Staff Sergeant Michael Murphrey stepped on an improvised land mine. He died the next day.

It is important to name all these names. For the veterans of the units that lost these men, Bergdahl’s capture and the subsequent hunt for him will forever tie to their memories, and to a time in their lives that will define them as people. He has finally returned. Those men will never have the opportunity.

Bergdahl was not the first American soldier in modern history to walk away blindly. As I write this in Seoul, I’m about 40 miles from where an American sergeant defected to North Korea in 1965. Charles Robert Jenkins later admitted that he was terrified of being sent to Vietnam, so he got drunk and wandered off on a patrol. He was finally released in 2004, after almost 40 hellish years of brutal internment. The Army court-martialed him, sentencing him to 30 days’ confinement and a dishonorable discharge. He now lives peacefully with his wife in Japan—they met in captivity in North Korea, where they were both forced to teach foreign languages to DPRK agents. His desertion barely warranted a comment, but he was not hailed as a hero. He was met with sympathy and humanity, and he was allowed to live his life, but he had to answer for what he did.

I believe that Bergdahl also deserves sympathy, but he has much to answer for, some of which is far more damning than simply having walked off. Many have suffered because of his actions: his fellow soldiers, their families, his family, the Afghan military, the unaffiliated Afghan civilians in Paktika, and none of this suffering was inevitable. None of it had to happen. Therefore, while I’m pleased that he’s safe, I believe there is an explanation due. Reprimanding him might yield horrible press for the Army, making our longest war even less popular than it is today. Retrieving him at least reminds soldiers that we will never abandon them to their fates, right or wrong. In light of the propaganda value, I do not expect the Department of Defense to punish Bergdahl.

He’s lucky to have survived. I once saw an insurgent cellphone video of an Afghan National Police enlistee. They had young boys hold him down, boys between the ages of 10 and 15, all of whom giggled like they were jumping on a trampoline. The prisoner screamed and pleaded for his life. The captors cut this poor man’s head off. That’s what the Taliban and their allies do to their captives who don’t have the bargaining value of an American soldier. That’s what they do to their fellow Afghans on a regular basis. No human being deserves that treatment, or to face the threat of that treatment every day for nearly five years.

But that certainly doesn’t make Bergdahl a hero, and that doesn’t mean that the soldiers he left behind have an obligation to forgive him. I just hope that, with this news, it marks a turning point for the veterans of that mad rescue attempt. It’s done. Many of the soldiers from our unit have left the Army, as I have. Many have struggled greatly with life on the outside, and the implicit threat of prosecution if they spoke about Bergdahl made it much harder to explain the absurdity of it all. Our families and friends wanted to understand what we had experienced, but the Army denied us that.

I forgave Bergdahl because it was the only way to move on. I wouldn’t wish his fate on anyone. I hope that, in time, my comrades can make peace with him, too. That peace will look different for every person. We may have all come home, but learning to leave the war behind is not a quick or easy thing. Some will struggle with it for the rest of their lives. Some will never have the opportunity.

And Bergdahl, all I can say is this: Welcome back. I’m glad it’s over. There was a spot reserved for you on the return flight, but we had to leave without you, man. You’re probably going to have to find your own way home.

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Stucky

Dphnne

It seems you did buy a clue.

Ask for you money back!!!

AWD

Dphnne

I’m assuming your a stupid cunt, using your twitter name, or you’re simply too stupid to use actual words. The guy was a deserter, he walked off and joined the Taliban. He’s not being released to the press because he can barely remember how to speak English (but knows Pashtoon perfectly, as does his father, the language of the Taliban). He was labeled a deserter, never a POW by our government.

He played Obama perfectly, getting the five most dangerous Taliban terrorists released for his worthless ass. Or, more likely, Obama is a Taliban sympathizer himself, and/or Muslim himself assisting his brothers, just as he has in Syria and Libya, by giving them money and weapons, and thus committing treason (again) against the USSA, the country he took an oath to protect.

Obama commits so many impeachable and treasonous crimes, nobody can prosecute him, because they are piling up so fast. By the time they add them all up, and get around to prosecuting our criminal president, he’ll be out of office. God only knows what Obama is going to do next, but one thing is for sure, it will further help destroy this country.

Stucky

“I’m assuming your a stupid cunt,” ———- AWD

you’re.

YOU’RE, goddammit!

Otherwise …. most excellent observation.

llpoh
llpoh

Dippny – you should take your scraggy ass off and go suck up to your heroes Obummer and Pelooni. I am sure Da Negroe in Chief will welcome a nice sloppy bj, even from a scag like you, given just how butt ugly Moochele is. Hell, a pitbull would be an upgrade over that ugly bitch. And, hey, the Dumbest woman on earth swings both ways, I am sure. Take her to the local Tongue and Groove and enjoy yourself – you deserve it.

AWD

This article pretty well sums up what happened (the reality version, not MSM pablum liberal twunts like Dphnne regurgitate because they are too fucking stupid, liberal, and brainwashed to think for themselves)

comment image

DO YOU AGREE WITH MICHAEL WALTZ?
http://angrywhitedude.com/2014/06/question-day-agree-michael-waltz/

Rubio: Obama ‘Believes He’s Become A Monarch Or An Emperor’
http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/03/rubio-obama-believes-hes-become-a-monarch-or-an-emperor/#ixzz33cuS0X7K

Stucky

To those on this thread smarter than me —- (mostly everyone)

1) Excellent comments (dpnhjhnne, excluded) … things to think about

2) Now even Hillary Cuntham says it was a good decision.

3) Not 1 or 2 …. but 14 soldiers lost their lives looking for Bergdahl.

In light of all this new information — which I did not know even this morning — I fully retract my comment that Bergdahl was a hero. BIG error on my part.

Mea Culpa

llpoh
llpoh

Stuck – I just read where it was 6 killed trying to find him, but whatever. Far too many in any event.

I suspect he will be looking over his shoulder the rest of his life. He will go into hiding, or perhaps into witness protection or some-such, is my guess. Some of those soldiers who lost their buddies may well want to have a chat with him. I have already read where a couple of them have said so.

Stucky

llpoh

From Drudge;

“Bill, we lost 14 soldiers, killed, searching for a deserter. ”
—— Col. David Hunt to Bill O’Reilly

I also read the Army will probably try him for desertion.

I wouldn’t want to be him. He shoulda stayed in the fucking mud hut.

Billy
Billy

Stuck,

Starting to get it now?

After thinking about this whole mess for a day, I have decided that Buddy-Fucker Bergdahl wasn’t a deserter. He was a Bad Actor.

See, fuckhead tried to join up with the frogs and join the Foreign Legion. They told him to fuck off. So, he joins up with the US Army, gets sent to Afghanistan and then has this bullshit “crisis of conscience”, crosses the wire and joins up with a bunch of smelly, head-chopping fucks. After fucking goats on a prayer rug for 5 years, all of a sudden we release 5 different smelly, head-chopping fucks to get this deserting, buddy-fucking piece of dog shit back…

Now, I don’t credit this shitheap with an overabundance of brains, but it is possible that he joined up as a Bad Actor the whole time, with the specific intent to do what he did from the very beginning. In other words, “We got played”.

Think about it. The war is wildly unpopular. The military desperately needs someone to lionize, to make people sympathetic. And what did we get? Some “deserting” motherfucker that will give the military a gigantic black eye.

Yeah. I ain’t buying that “deserter” bullshit. I did plenty of shit that I wasn’t happy about, but I fucking dealt with it because the orders were legal. A soldier actually DOES have the option – the duty – of disobeying an order that is illegal, but it is a place only the ones with a stout heart go. If you are found to be wrong at your courts martial, they will burn you down. So, you best know your shit and be 100% in the right before you go refusing orders… the blowback is formidable.

As far as hypotheticals, I find the world around me is vexing enough as it is without entertaining them. But if a group of US soliders were ordered to fire on civilians, I would at least hope that there were some who would refuse. And I would consider firing on civilians a violation, a betrayal, of the Oath and therefore the “soldiers” would be renegades. And all that that implies…

Stucky

Billy

Yup. Got it. Sometimes it takes a while.

To you, and the others here who were correct all along, thanks for not calling me a fucking dumbass dipshit moran. Logic and reasoning win me over every time.

Pi
Pi

King Obama was raised into the Muslim Sun Cult of Sabud. Which connects him more in with the Satanist illuminated sun worshipers then Muslims, but he still was raised in a cult. How on God’s Earth did a cultist become the president of the USA? When the rep first started talking about his birth certificate, I ignored it — not out of ignorance but b/c I didn’t think the government would be backwards enough to let a foreigner in. I finally researched it, and boy was I wrong!! They made the rep look crazy in the media for their claims, when it was the truth!! Not only that he was raised — GOOGLE IT — in the Muslim cult of Sabud. Its American base just happens to be from which city?? You got it!! Chicago. I am just sick of Satanist (Zionist) and Nazis. They are trashing this country and we are letting them.

Enough is enough.

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