Six people dead searching for a deserter.

also. How do you know he was a deserter. Because this guy thinks so?

Even the army doesn't know. All anyone knows is that he walked off his base and from things he'd said to people he'd intended to. From what these children said it sounds like he was trying to skirt around them without being noticed and failed at it. Personally, I doubt he was all there in the head thinking he could just walk out of Afghanistan alone and in uniform in the first place, but that doesn't make him mentally ill necessarily just really stupid.

In any case for whatever reason he deserted and in doing so was captured.

several versions, for years.

The RW is busy setting up another propaganda attempt to turn this good news story into bad new, because all Obama does must be seen as a failure or the whole Republican world collapses.

This guy selling a book, like the infamous untold account of the Bengazhi contractor?

No one knows but him what happened, why he walked away.
If he deserted only he knows why.
Let's not attack this guy. Let's listen to his side of what happened.

I want to hear his story.

would desert in a place like Afghanistan,that would seem to be certain death or capture.I have a hard time believing this story.

Where the fuck would he desert to?

Maybe he did desert; maybe he didn't. It seems strange (no, downright insane) for a soldier to wander away from some godforsaken outpost in freaking Afghanistan completely unarmed. Maybe he had a mental breakdown of some kind. Now that they've got him back maybe they can find out what really happened. In any event, it would have been wrong to decide to leave him a captive of the Taliban forever just because some other soldiers believe he deserted.

Years ago, and I am nowhere close to the 501st. I guess the order failed

I suggest we all wait.

thanks for the link!

Everyone interested in this should have to read it.

It was Michael Hastings that reported on this, too.

That article is fascinating. He disappeared 5 days after his best friend is blown up.

I don't think "Cody" knows as much as he is relaying, he said the Foreign Legion story was a lie, but the Rolling Stone article says he really did try to join.

Including this one.

Nobody saw him leave. Nobody heard him leave.

Nobody.

Yet the immediate charge is that he deserted.

Many soldiers realized very quickly that these wars were bogus. Including Tillman. Most of those guys were hated by their fellow soldiers, like Tillman. Turns out Tillman was fragged. So why not make up a story that Bergdahl deserted.

Innocent until proven guilty IMO

They worshipped him including the younger ones who saw him as an older brother.

You are right - inexperienced kids in the heat of their first firefight

Austin Cline is a fucking idiot.

There's also links to truth-out, cbs news, veterans today and others. Knock yourself out googling "Tillman murdered?"

I've already said I'm happy to be educated. I freely confess I haven't read Krakauer's book so if that's the new gold standard of information and every other Tillman story has now been debunked I simply haven't heard about it.

Why so hostile?

peddling an unsubstantiated story to advance a personal agenda.

As for google - give me a fucking break. A long list of cranks and CTrs peddling bullshit stories - "WAS PAT TILLMAN MURDERED BY THE ILLUMINATI?" , "Was Tillman murdered when he learned the truth about the U.S. Backed Naro-State of Afghanistan?", "Was Pat Tillman Murdered for being anti-Bush?" , "Pat Tillman Murdered Because He Was About To Become Anti-War Hero?"

Yes, I understand there were questions. But most of these "answers" are venturing into Birther land.

...

Smells like bullshit.

Human beings have different breaking points. A soldier isn't just a soldier, replaceable like parts on a car. It is as though people want to condemn the man because he was in a dysfunctional unit.

He didn't have a CO to go to.

It eerily reminds me two face. "I don't know what to do! The coin won't tell me!"

Absolutely none.

are almost certainly being solicited by either the GOP or the media with an agenda when it was already known for years that he most likely deserted) in order to make the GOP case that Bergdahl for 5 Taliban was a "bad deal" and he isn't worth it. It really just sickens me, all politics aside. Blaming him publicly for deaths at this point, which have not necessarily been confirmed to be directly related, and when he is probably a wreck and his family hasn't even spoken to him yet, is beyond cruel. Yeah, we know, buddy, you're afraid that people will wrongly cheer his release--why not let the DoD fully debrief him and follow its procedures with him before slamming him publicly? Shame on all media outlets who are running with this.

Pretty much everyone in military circles has discussed him and the common belief he deserted since it happened.

It's just that you are just paying attention for the first time.

who served in the Middle East while this was going on and they were searching for him. I said it was common knowledge for years that he most likely deserted--Do you have a reading comprehension problem?

But on this? We are in absolute agreement.

who is the worse traitor? Cheney or Bergdahl?

Let he who has not sinned throw the first grenade.

if you're going to dessert -- you'd want to get some place safe.

now i suppose the argument will be he turned traitor.

all that bias and judgment . . . how many Americans would this soldier leave behind?

The author can only connect the soldiers' deaths to Bergdahl indirectly. That might be only emotional of him, but it's downright dishonest of the Daily Beast.

that this fellow could have had a breakdown and walked away, or a million other reasons as to why he was suddenly not there. The fact that people think he's a deserter is irrelevant. Until they can get inside his head to try to find out what was going on, he's worth saving. With the high rate of suicides among the military, I'm surprised we don't hear more reports of mental schisms and breaks.

Could just be some teabagger who is mad at Obama and thinks everything he does is bad.

Plenty of links that predate his release where people talk about it.

By bringing him back, didn't Obama ensure that those solders didn't die in vain?

His father has an epic beard.

wikileaks 6/30/09 intercept


http://www.pownetwork.org/gulfII/bergdahl.htm

with him"--I think this intercept is why it's important that the US wasn't solely relying on his fellow platoon members' statements about his desertion, since none of them were eyewitnesses to him walking away, or his moment of capture.

In case facts actually matter to you...

One doesn't wander outside a base to use the bathroom, and doesn't do so without a weapon- anywhere in Afghanistan. Your rifle is with you 24/7 over there, including in the bathroom (more than one person got clumsy and dropped one in too...). Even where I was on a big post like Bagram where you have coffee shops and a Dairy Queen your rifle is with you 24/7 including in the bathroom.

And I doubt they slipped inside the perimeter, nabbed him, and got him out.

Sounds like maybe they came up on him using the bathroom as he wandered around after he had left.

That looks like a transcript of radio intercepts from the Taliban, so its as accurate as they are talking to each other. How accurate that is, who knows. But being captured using the bathroom in the perimeter doesn't make much sense, being caught with his pants down as he wandered around would.

I hope they are pretty quick in releasing all the info now that he is safe to put all this speculation to rest.

Please explain.

And nobody really knows what happened to him during those years. Except that he was a prisoner of the fucking *Taliban*!

It might be a good idea to take it from there. And to leave his family alone.

and became President.

process, in this case a lawful court martial if the evidence warrants it.

agendas are. At this point the Pentagon is not pursuing the matter.

...and there's no way for us here to sort out if they're right, or if some are axe-grinding. I'll leave figuring that out to people have made and will make real investigations getting all the available facts, not just some peoples' opinions.

that caused him to desert?

"In the US army you are cut down for being honest... but if you are a conceited brown nosing shit bag you will be allowed to do what ever you want, and you will be handed your higher rank... The system is wrong. I am ashamed to be an american. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools...I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live. We don't even care when we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets with our armored trucks... We make fun of them in front of their faces, and laugh at them for not understanding we are insulting them.." --Bowe Bergdahl

Does no one bear responsibility for that?

"Frankly, we don't give a shit why he left," says one White House official. "He's an American soldier. We want to bring him home."

Enough said for me.

of life in war time. I assume he had some sort of mental break. Let's wait and get the whole story before we jump to conclusions.

This man deserves a fair hearing on the facts of his case to determine if he is subject to punishment.

But he was, regardless of the facts, taken hostage by an enemy of this country. He was and is an American soldier and as such is worthy of our efforts to free him.