I recently, just found it tonight, received a suggestion from a friend that I do an blog entry based on an e-mail that he got from Vern Buchanan.. Well here it is. Thanks Richard.
I have been reading, though I had not paid a great deal of attention to it, about the missing Sgt. Bergdahl. When I first remember hearing about him was when there was a bunch of articles where it was said that his disappearance caused the death of a number of troops who were looking for him. There were reports that ranged from him being kidnapped off of his post to the idea that he had defected..
I could not see him being kidnapped off of any kind of military post, but then again, given some of the things that have come out since, I might see where he might have defected but, I don’t really know either way.
There are a few things I have read, with interest, that point more to the idea that he was not kidnapped.
The Washington Post published a story relating statements he had made to them , that were used in a podcast called “Serial”, in which he said he was like Jason Bourne and that he intended to prove this by gathering information on the Taliban.. He also wanted to get the attention of his superiors, which he did, so that he could air grievances about his unit and the command structure.
“What I was seeing from my first unit all the way up into Afghanistan, all’s I was seeing was basically leadership failure, to the point that the lives of the guys standing next to me were literally from what I could see in danger of something seriously going wrong and somebody being killed,” Bergdahl said in the podcast.
It seems to me that HE was what went seriously wrong… He keeps getting refereed to as Sgt. Bergdahl but he was only a Pfc when he went missing, and the next couple of promotions were automatic based on time rather than earned promotion. I am not up on how the Army promotes it’s people but, I do know that when I got promoted to E-5 SSgt in the Air Force it was after I had to test for the promotion. The only automatic ranks I got were up to E-4, at that time we had E-4 Senior Airman, not an NCO, and after a year I got to be an E-4 Sgt. I understand they did away with the SGT rank in the 90s and now, last I heard, just have the SrA position.. What I see here is he seems to have gotten promoted for Stupidity.
In a letter to his father Bowe indicates that there will be some packages coming to him him soon. In another part of that same report they tell that Bowe had sent his laptop, and a few other possessions, which might have indicated that he was planning to leave soon. He had also written, to his father that he was “ashamed to be an american”.
One of the most interesting items I noticed is a wikipedia entry about Bowe Bergdahl and his background. I see he was in the United States Coast Guard for 26 days before he got an “uncharacterized discharge” which would equate of the “failure to adapt” statement they used to use when people flunked out of Air Force basic training.. It might have applied, in the 70s, to the person just not being able to get with the program, or being gay.
Given the circumstances I would say that the DoD person who stated that he had served with “honor and distinction” is a NITWIT, and is a typical member of the Obama administration.
While I don’t think much of the President’s dealing with terrorist, I think that what Bowe Bergdahl needs now, more so than the recriminations about how many people died looking for him, if any really did, is a stay in a mental health facility. He obviously had some problems with reality.
Thanks,
That Joe Guy.