These repukes are scum. Even if he is a deserter, he should be brought back and tried in a military court.

You are not coming back, so I won't say "Welcome back!"

I will only say, Thank you.

Figure out what happened. Then, if merited, go down the UCMJ and Manual for Courts-Martial road. If not merited, release him from active duty and let him try to build some kind of life.

Imagine if it was your husband or loved one.... you'd be pissed at these Chickenhawks.

i think they finally made it simple enough for the 2 year olds.
they dont give a fuck about ANYONE!!!

else.

The "I got mine, FUCK everyone else" crowd.

Yes as a family member of generations of veterans and a currently serving grandchild, I whole heartedly agree.

I still have an uncle who has not come back from Korea. He was taken prisoner at the Gauntlet. These Chickenhawks aren't worth the breath it takes to say chickenhawk.

First and foremost he was a US soldier being held prisoner during a time of war. We have responsibilities to those we send off to fight our wars. Nothing being said by the Republicans, or anyone else, absolves us of our responsibility to bring him home. He was still a POW.

The framing that he should have been left to rot is a new low in American politics. I'm disgusted by what I've been hearing the past few days. Are these people not listening to what's coming out of their mouths?

Just raid the location where he's hanging out and capture him. What happens next is up to him and the people around him.

Nuff said!

if we raided the place we'd have to start a new war with Afghanistan I really don't think we want one.

The man has not been found guilty of any crime yet AND was given a promotion while being held.

Oh and these guys were Taliban....

The term deserter has very explicit legal meaning, and requires a trial before it can be asserted as fact. To not give this soldier the benefit of the doubt after 5 years of hell in captivity is shameful.

What is very clear is that the Army was on notice that this kid was losing it well before he disappeared. And yet they did nothing. 

If nothing else, we owe it to his family to bring him back alive. Giving up 5 Afghan Taliban we improperly sent to GITMO in the first place and who we will need to give up when we are out of Afghanistan anyway is a pretty sweet deal. Bowe is back alive without a shot fired. Way better than giving 1,500 TOW missiles to Iran for 3 hostages like Reagan did---missiles that Iran then used against the Israelis.

I am sick of the vile GOP talking points on this. As a DUer and purported Dem, you should be ashamed of your post.

I agree you never leave anyone behind.

I also think they should conduct a full investigation and I will accept their findings.

They won't get a desertion conviction so a conviction of AWOL is pretty much an administrative issue at this point and he could be confined to quarters a brief time (like a week or month) and/or lose a pay grade and be docked some money and then ultimately discharged. Not really a big deal even though he could lose some VA benefits without an honorable discharge if something like that happens.

The important thing is he is back. It will be interesting to see if he actually wanted to come back or if he is smart enough not to incriminate himself when they start interrogating him.

Former Bush Official Blasts GOP On Bergdahl: Bush Would Have Done The Same Thing

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/06/03/3444366/former-bush-official-blasts-gop-bush-would-have-agreed-to-bergdahl-swap/

Why The Five Taliban Detainees Had To Be Released Soon, No Matter What

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/06/02/3443719/the-case-for-negotiating-for-bergdahls-release/

“He was a young 20-year-old. Young 20-year-olds make stupid decisions. I don’t think we’ll say if you make a stupid decision we’ll leave you in the hands of the Taliban.”

Yet that is exactly what the GOP wanted.

They don't want any light shone on their filthy little war, for which they should all be hanged.

Remember Jihad Johnny?

The Bush administration was extraordinarily lenient to a guy who joined up with the Taliban and supported them. Bellinger must remember.

In former wars, J.J. would have been charged with treason. Yet his fellow soldiers rescued him. He got time in a prison near his family to make it easier with scarcely a squeak from the chickenhawk brigade. Bergdahl tried to escape from the Taliban up until the very end.

And as the article states:

Though Cheney told Fox News on Monday that he would not have agreed to the deal, Bellinger stressed that the Bush administration “returned something like 500 detainees from Guantanamo.”

So much for making it sound as if something wrong was done here as that dog won't hunt.

Statistics from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence show that only 6 percent (5 in total) of Guantanamo detainees released during the Obama administration have potentially engaged in militant activities. That compares with a rate of nearly 30 percent under the Bush administration.

Cheney. as usual, remains his malignant, venomous self.

The GOP going this route proves, once again, that to them, the only good soldier is a dead one.

Start an unpopular war, treat the enlisted men badly while private contractors abuse them, civilians and the reputation of the USA, and refuse to pay for it with taxes to make the harm seven-fold. Put your money abroad in other currencies like Darth did, and cheer on the total collapse of the American economy with bankruptcy.

And then the GOP decided to keep soldiers on so many tours under bad conditions they committed suicide, then denied survivors care stateside.

As they rewarded the looters and their GOP cronies, they starved the military families at home. In too many cases they'd offered bonuses to those who joined to pay off their debts and help their families, but when they got harmed or disabled, unable to get work, the GOP demanded the bonus money be paid back and sent debt collectors after them and ruined their chance of jobs, housing and all the rest.

The GOP are not now, and never have been pro-life, they are the party of death.

They sent a million people into a clusterfuck while their media played the music for their evil circus and they stole the store.

They are absolutely beneath contempt in every single way, from the beginning to the end of their profitable adventure. To hell with each and every one of them.

http://linkis.com/aattp.org/aycAq

thanks for the info, fresh

Now please come back

Yes, it's a pact we must not break.

K&R

captured Halloween night 1944, in Luxembourg. US Army. Now my grandson is in US Army, and I remember how proud he was of the Soldiers Creed when I saw him at basic training graduation:


I WILL NEVER LEAVE A FALLEN COMRADE

daughter, sister, & auntie of veterans, i am always comforted in knowing that no matter what - when a loved one goes to war ~ that loved one will come home to those who love her or him.

during the first Bush war. He called us once from Bahrain. He was partying and spent the night off the ship, AWOL. Of course, he was busted a rank and lost pay, but I shudder when I hear these bastards trashing this guy because he left his post and was captured and therefore, what?? We should leave him there? I'm sick and disgusted with this crap from the right who will stop at nothing, nothing to put this president in a bad light.

My son finished his service in one piece and with an honorable discharge, for which I am very grateful.

Never ever leave a Soldier behind.... does that include comrades who have expired?

or from iraq & afghanistan?

If I am dead and it's dangerous to get my remains, freaking leave them. It's a valueless shell. I wouldn't want to make more bodies simply to retrieve mine.

I don't give a shit what people's opinions are, the man is a human being, an American soldier and he was rescued.

Forget about the rest of it. He is a soldier.

Nice to read you again...
A fellow Floridian

Good to see him even on just an occasional basis.

http://www.anyclip.com/movies/oceans-thirteen/introducing-nuff-said/

you sent him there, you bring him back

"...Unless it's Obama who's going to bring him back."

It amazes me that we've had six friggin' years of this nonsense ("No" to anything done by Obama, even if it was a Repuke idea in the first place) and it's still going strong....

Nuff said!

he was in the Navy during ww2 and spent some time on small islands in the pacific. We were going through old pictures and I found one of him in his navy uniform, smoking the local weed with a bare breasted woman in a sarong at his side. He finally told me the story how he went awol, wound up in a village somewhere and was partying with a bunch of locals who were one generation from cannibals. His buddies covered for him and searched for him and got him back to the ship before he got into real trouble.
When my husband was in Korea, he went awol on a meth bender, he was a medic and it was easy to get, he had a little place in the village and a girlfriend and just didn't want to go back to base, he had actually thought he didn't want to leave Korea until he came to his senses.
I have 2 nephews who have each done multiple tours in iraq and afghanistan both of them said it took them about 2 weeks after they deployed to figure out the story they were told was bullshit. Neither one of them will even talk about what they did or saw over there, the only comment one has made is that he is afraid to talk about what he really thinks because he thinks he will be called a traitor or terrorist by a bunch of chickenhawks. They were lied to and figured it out, imagine how you would feel, what you would think. And would you feel free to talk about it when 99% of the country has no idea what was done in our name and already made up their minds about how soldiers should behave or feel.
This fella has not been able to tell his side of what happened, there are a handful of emails we have no idea what other emails or statements he made, we have no idea yet some of his fellow citizens seem to think they know enough that we should have let him die as a pow. That doesn't even sound american. The trade we made for him was 5 people who would never be prosecuted because we don't have the evidence to bring charges against them, so are we supposed to hold them forever, that doesn't sound american either.
This entire episode has been disappointing.

"They say it’s because Bergdahl is a deserter, that he could be a traitor.

And maybe he is. Maybe he’s both.

And maybe he isn’t.

We don’t know. No one knows, except for Bergdahl himself.

And Bergdahl has neither admitted his guilt nor proclaimed his innocence as yet. There’s been no Article 32 hearing, no trial, no court martial. The military and the intelligence agencies haven’t even begun his debriefing. All we know for certain is that an American soldier was taken captive by the enemy, held for years, and returned as part of a prisoner exchange. That’s it. That’s what we know. We don’t know what events led to his capture, not all of them, not yet. We don’t know the details of his captivity. We don’t know the particulars of his release beyond the broad details that have been published in the press.

Nevertheless, Bergdahl has been condemned by the popular media, by social networks, by pundits and politicians, not because they know more about the situation than you or I do, but solely because they hate the president. If Obama was behind Bergdahl’s release, then Bergdahl is a traitor, Q.E.D. because the president must never, ever, be allowed even the slightest acknowledgement of patriotism.

This condemnation isn’t about Bergdahl, it’s about Obama."
http://www.stonekettle.com/2014/06/negotiating-with-terrorists.html?m=1

That would be terrible for the troops and anyone thinking of enlisting to think that some chickenhawk assholes feel they "don't deserve" to return home for any reason.

GOPers, sick.

Not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

http://crooksandliars.com/2006/12/15/remebering-rumsfeld-you-go-to-war-with-the-army-you-have-not-the-army-you-might-want-or-wish-to-have-at-a-later-time

See Donald Rumsfailed.

I was wrong. If anyone said of any of the veterans I have loved and cared for what they have said about Sgt Bergdahl, I'd have their livers on a pole.

Signed,

The great-great granddaughter, great granddaughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin, wife, sister, aunt, great aunt, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines and a retired USAF MSgt

don't care about Bergdahl. They don't care about the prisoners at Gitmo. They don't care about you or me. They don't care about anything but reducing business taxes and regulations, cutting social programs to pay for them and grabbing their ankles so they can take the big one from their big money sugar daddies.

Thanks for the thread, trumad.

I'm so, so sorry for the Bergdahl parents and their son. The RW Smear Machine is spewing its filth again, and only to discredit the Black Man in the White House. They don't care who the hell gets hurt, run over, or killed.

I know there are some at DU who have gotten caught up in the controversy, mostly in good faith I'm sure. But over the years I feel like I've worn my typing fingers out saying Consider The Source, and Who Does It Serve.

Bottom line for me: Americans bring their soldiers home. When we stop doing that and start leaving them behind in enemy hands, how dare we ever ask anyone to serve in any branch of the armed forces? How dare we?

Military service is not a popularity contest, nor is the decision to bring someone home. Christ on a Trailer Hitch, what have we become?

The trash talk started almost before Bergdahl was admitted to the hospital at Landstuhl, and was in full cry within a couple of days. There's been no trial, nothing of the sort, just a most obvious attempt to once again undermine an action taken by President Obama. (For reference, see how the capture and death of bin Ladin has been reframed as an heroic act undertaken by SEAL Team 6 apparently on their own initiative without direction by their CIC.)

If there is anything at all to the stories, let it play out in a military courtroom here in the US. Until then, everyone else needs to chill.