(CNN) -- The sense of pride expressed by officials of the Obama administration at the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is not shared by many of those who served with him, veterans and soldiers who call him a deserter whose "selfish act" ended up costing the lives of better men.
"I was pissed off then,
and I am even more so now with everything going on," said former Sgt.
Matt Vierkant, a member of Bergdahl's platoon when he went missing on
June 30, 2009. "Bowe Bergdahl deserted during a time of war, and his fellow Americans lost their lives searching for him."
Vierkant said Bergdahl
needs to not only acknowledge his actions publicly but face a military
trial for desertion under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
A reporter asked Defense
Secretary Chuck Hagel on Sunday whether Bergdahl had left his post
without permission or deserted -- and, if so, whether he would be
punished. Hagel didn't answer directly. "Our first priority is assuring
his well-being and his health and getting him reunited with his family,"
he said. "Other circumstances that may develop and questions, those
will be dealt with later."
Photos: Released Guantanamo Taliban detainees arrive in Qatar
Guantanamo detainees swapped
Korder: Bergdahl 'at best a deserter'
Bergdahl swap was only seconds long
Following his release
from five years of captivity in Afghanistan on Saturday, Bergdahl was
transferred to a military hospital in Germany.
A senior Defense official
said Bergdahl's "reintegration process" will include "time for him to
tell his story, decompress, and to reconnect with his family through
telephone calls and video conferences."
Said Bergdahl's former
squad leader, Greg Leatherman: "I'm pleased to see him returned safely.
From experience, I hope that he receives adequate reintegration
counseling. I believe that an investigation should take place as soon as
health care professionals deem him fit to endure one."
Another senior Defense
official said Bergdahl will not likely face any punishment. "Five years
is enough," he told CNN on condition of anonymity.
Questions surround the
circumstances of Bergdahl's disappearance. Conflicting details have
since emerged about how the militants managed to capture Bergdahl.
Published accounts have varied widely, from claims that he walked off
the post to claims that he was grabbed from a latrine.
"We really don't know
why he left the base and under what circumstances," Pentagon spokesman
Rear Adm. John Kirby said Monday. Details of that will come out, he
said, adding that the Army has never classified Bergdahl as a deserter
and has scheduled the soldier for a promotion next month. But the
details around a soldier being taken captive "don't matter," he said,
when it comes to the military's response.
"We're going to do all
we can to get you back," he said. "That's an obligation that we have,
all the people that put on this uniform."
According to firsthand
accounts from soldiers in his platoon, Bergdahl, while on guard duty,
shed his weapons and walked off the observation post with nothing more
than a compass, a knife, water, a digital camera and a diary.
At least six soldiers
were killed in subsequent searches for Bergdahl, and many soldiers in
his platoon said attacks seemed to increase against the United States in
Paktika province in the days and weeks following his disappearance.
"Any of us would have
died for him while he was with us, and then for him to just leave us
like that, it was a very big betrayal," said former U.S. Army Sgt. Josh
Korder, who has the name of three soldiers who died while searching for
Bergdahl tatooed on his back.
Many of Bergdahl's
fellow troops -- from the seven or so who knew him best in his squad to
the larger group that made up the 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry
Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division -- told CNN
that they signed nondisclosure agreements agreeing to never share any
information about Bergdahl's disappearance and the efforts to recapture
him. Some were willing to dismiss that document in hopes that the truth
would come out about a soldier who they now fear is being hailed as a
hero, while the men who lost their lives looking for him are ignored.
"I don't think I could
have continued to go on without being able to share with you and the
people the true things that happened in this situation," Korder said
Monday. "Because if you guys aren't made aware of it, it will just go
on, and he'll be a hero, and nobody will be able to know the truth."
Traitor or hometown hero?
Many are flocking to
social media, such as the Facebook page "Bowe Bergdahl is NOT a hero,"
where they share stories detailing their resentment. A number of
comments on his battalion's Facebook page prompted the moderator to ask
for more respect to be shown.
"I challenge any one of
you who label him a traitor to spend 5 years in captivity with the
Taliban or Haqqani, then come back and accuse him again. Whatever his
intent when he walked away or was captured, he has more than paid for
it."
As the chorus of
criticism from some in Bergdahl's platoon grows louder, residents in his
hometown of Hailey, Idaho, say their support of the soldier hasn't been
shaken.
City officials released a
statement saying they were being inundated with calls with concerns
about Bergdahl's case and calling for people not to judge without
knowing all the details.
"We're leaving the
politics to everybody else. We're just glad to welcome Bowe back to us,"
family friend Stefanie O'Neill said. "We're going to let things play
out when Bowe is able to tell his story."
Looking for adventure?
E-mails reported by the
late Michael Hastings in Rolling Stone in 2012 reveal what Bergdahl's
fellow infantrymen learned within days of his disappearance: He told
people that he no longer supported the U.S. effort in Afghanistan.
"The future is too good
to waste on lies," he wrote to his parents. "And life is way too short
to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping
fools with their ideas that are wrong. I have seen their ideas and I am
ashamed to even be American. The horror of the self-righteous arrogance
that they thrive in. It is all revolting."
Bergdahl wrote to them, "I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting."
CNN has not independently verified the authenticity of the e-mails.
Spc. Cody Full, a former
member of Bergdahl's squad, tweeted this weekend that before he
disappeared, Bergdahl once told him, "If deployment is lame, I'm going
to get lost in the Mountains and make my way to China."
Leatherman told CNN that
Bergdahl "always looked at the mountains in the distance and talked of
'seeing what's on the other side.' "
Full noted in his
Twitter recollections a story that others from Blackfoot Company relay.
While soldiers were searching for Bergdahl, a platoon "came upon some
children, they asked him have they seen an American. The children said
'yes, he was crawling on his belly through weeds and acting funny a
while ago,' " according to Full.
The platoon went to the
village where the children said the American had gone. "Villagers said
an American did come through the area and was wanting water and someone
who spoke English," Full shared.
Korder says he believes Bergdahl was looking for an adventure "without having anybody to answer to" when he left his post.
"He wanted to go see Afghanistan for himself without the Army stopping him or having to tell him what to do," Korder said.
Soldiers died during search
Former Pfc. Jose
Baggett, 27, of Chicago, was also in Blackfoot Company and said he was
close to two men "killed because of his (Bergdahl's) actions."
"He walked off," Baggett
told CNN. "He left his guard post. Nobody knows if he defected or he's a
traitor or he was kidnapped. What I do know is, he was there to protect
us, and instead he decided to defer from America and go and do his own
thing. I don't know why he decided to do that, but we spend so much of
our resources, and some of those resources were soldiers' lives."
Many soldiers on the ground at the time said insurgents were able to take advantage of the intense search for Bergdahl.
"A huge thing in-country
is not building patterns. Well when you are looking for a person
everyday that creates a pattern. While searching for him, ambushes and
IEDs picked up tremendously. Enemy knew we would be coming. IEDs started
being placed more effectively in the coming weeks. Ambushes were more
calculated, cover and concealment was used," Full tweeted.
On August 18, 2009,
Staff Sgt. Clayton Bowen and Pfc. Morris Walker were killed by an IED in
the search for Bergdahl. Staff Sgt. Kurt Curtiss was killed on August
26; 2nd Lt. Darryn Andrews and Pfc. Matthew Michael Martinek were killed
after being attacked in Yahya Khail District on September 4; Staff Sgt.
Michael Murphrey was killed September 5 by an IED at the Forward
Operating Base, Sharana.
Moreover, other
operations were put on hold while the search for Bergdahl was made a top
priority, according to officers who served in Afghanistan in that time.
Manpower and assets -- such as scarce surveillance drones and
helicopters -- were redirected to the hunt. The lack of assets is one
reason the closure of a dangerous combat outpost, COP Keating, was
delayed. Eight soldiers were killed at COP Keating before it was
ultimately closed.
One soldier with the
509th Regiment, a sister unit of the 501st, told CNN that after Bergdahl
disappeared, the U.S. Army essentially was told to lock down the entire
province of Paktika. He described sitting in the middle of a field with
his platoon, vulnerable, with capabilities and personnel mismanaged
throughout the region. Different platoons ran out of water, food and
ammunition.
Two mortarmen -- Pvt. Aaron Fairbairn and Pfc. Justin Casillas -- were killed in a July 4, 2009, attack.
"It was unbelievable,"
the soldier said. "All because of the selfish act of one person. The
amount of animosity (toward him) is nothing like you've ever seen
before."
That Bergdahl was freed in an exchange for five detainees at Guantanamo Bay is a further source of consternation.
"I don't understand why
we're trading prisoners at Gitmo for somebody who deserted during a time
of war, which is an act of treason," Vierkant said.
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