Bergdahl’s “Desertion” Likened to Kerry’s False Charges

Posted: June 10, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bergdahl’s “Desertion” Likened to Kerry’s False Charges
by  JBS President, John F. McManus

It’s good news that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has been released by the Taliban; however, while government officials have been quick to describe him as a “hero,” several of his former platoon mates refuse to agree.

On June 5th, Megyn Kelly of Fox News assembled six of the men who served with Bergdahl five years ago in that 30-man unit in eastern Afghanistan: all are still serving in the Army. The leader of the group in 2009 was Sergeant Evan Buetow. Without mincing his words, Buetow immediately stated that Bergdahl “had deserted.”

Seemingly aghast, Kelly asked the men sitting before the Fox cameras to raise a hand if they thought he had deserted. All six did so without hesitation. Cody Full stated with proper emphasis, “We took an oath and we all had to abide by it; you don’t just leave your fellow Americans to join with somebody else.” Matt Verkant was the team leader of the squad in which Bergdahl had been serving. Verkant noted that each of them had volunteered to serve and “had signed up to do a job.” He felt that Bergdahl had let all of his mates down. Squad leader Justin Gearlever also stressed that they had all “volunteered” knowing what was expected of them wouldn’t be easy.

Together, these men expressed their firm belief that Bergdahl wasn’t captured and that he had voluntarily left his post and his mates. “So we pushed the patrol out right away” to look for him and bring him back. That effort and subsequent efforts to find the missing soldier became costly inasmuch as two were killed immediately and several others died in subsequent efforts to locate him.

Obama administration spokesmen, even the president himself, have refused to label Bergdahl a deserter and have cautioned all to wait until the man has a chance to get back to America from his hospitalization in Germany and tell his own story. Secretary of State John Kerry has sought vociferously to defuse anger over the release of five top Taliban operatives from the Guantanamo Base prison in exchange for the wandering soldier.

Kerry’s frequent appearances on television and statements given to the press prompted California Republican Representative Duncan Hunter to liken Bergdahl’s “desertion” with Kerry’s conduct while serving in Vietnam in 1969 and when he returned to the States. Hunter recalled in a televised interview:

As John Kerry threw his medals over the White House fence and turned his back on all of his Vietnam brothers and sisters, that’s what Bergdahl did…. Bergdahl walked away from his men and he left them in a bad spot. People lost their lives or got hurt trying to find him.

Congressman Hunter took the opportunity to remind listeners that while he was serving on active duty, Kerry fraudulently earned three Purple Heart medals for minor scratches that no one would else had ever received. Some of his supposed wounds were even self-inflicted. He was given a Silver Star for heroism performed by others. Still in uniform after arriving back in the States, Kerry threw his medals over Washington DC fence and then provided a completely false account of the action then taking place in Vietnam. He insisted to a Senate panel that American personnel had “raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, razed villages” and more. He even went to France to meet with a high Viet Cong official in an act that violated the law but won him great praise in the American Communist Party’s press.

Later in 2004, when challenged about his disgraceful conduct and his sensational indictment of fellow American military personnel, Kerry admitted that what he said about fellow Americans serving in Vietnam wasn’t true. Congressman Hunter’s charge that Kerry had “turned his back on all of his Vietnam brothers and sisters” was correct, even if understated.

We await the return of Bowe Bergdahl to America and his answers to some tough questions he should be required to supply; we suggest Secretary of State John Kerry not conduct the questioning.

In the meantime, visit The New American website to read past articles on Bergdahl, learn more about the story and keep up-to-date as we wait for new news to surface.

 

Bergdahl is No Hero, According to His Fellow Soldiers

Posted: June 5, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bergdahl is No Hero, According to His Fellow Soldiers
by JBS President John F. McManus

One late June night in 2009, U.S. Army Private Bowe Bergdahl disappeared from his unit in northeastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province. He left a note saying he was disillusioned with the U.S. military, could no longer support the mission he was tasked to participate in, and had left to start life anew. He had earlier sent his computer and some other belongings home to Idaho. In a letter to his parents, he concluded that “the horror that is America is disgusting.” Fellow soldiers recall him gazing at the mountains from the small base his unit had established and wondering aloud whether he could cross them and get to China. For months after his disappearance that was never considered a capture, the mission his unit sought to carry out dwelled instead on finding him and rescuing him from the Taliban who were thought to be holding him.

Now that he has been released, several of the men who served alongside him have spoken out with renewed anger. Joshua Cornelison, a former medic assigned to the same platoon from which Bergdahl bolted, told the New York Times, “Everything that we did in those days was to advance the search for Bergdahl.” That search turned out to be very costly when two soldiers were killed in an ambush within a week of the disappearance of their lost comrade. Cody Full, another member of Bergdahl’s unit, agrees with Cornelison that their fellow platoon mate ought to be court-martialed as a deserter.

Over ensuing weeks and months, another four to six Americans met death in efforts to find the missing private. For at least 90 days, the American forces in that area of Afghanistan were under orders to abandon whatever mission they were on if they had any indication that Bergdahl was being held nearby. Not only were ground troops searching, they were aided by helicopters, drones, and dogs trained to locate humans.

Now, after five years, Bergdahl has been released by the Taliban and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and National Security Adviser Susan Rice say he is in poor health. (Why should anyone believe Rice after her false claim that the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi occurred because of a Los Angeles airing of an uncomplimentary rogue video?) The prisoner swap arranged by the Obama administration has to be of the most-lopsided exchanges in history. For Bergdahl’s freedom, the U.S. released five top Taliban officials from the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. All appear from news photos to be in excellent health. Each has a history of top service within the Taliban. Considered leaders of the forces that would impose the strictest form of Islam on their native country (and the world!), their release has led to the widespread conclusion that the Taliban will be energized and become more determined and deadly. Capturing more Americans and bargaining for the release could become a new tactic as the Americans prepare to leave the ravaged country.

Let’s put this into perspective by switching roles. Would it make any sense if we had exchanged a private in the Taliban for five colonels and generals in our armed forces?

The 5 for 1 deal arranged by the Obama team included mediation from the officials in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. It also included official contact with the Taliban, and implicit recognition of their legitimacy. The arrangement also requires Qatar, a Muslim-dominated country, to hold the five for a year and ensure that they will not engage in any contact with their Afghan comrades, all of whom are overjoyed at receiving what they consider excellent news. Will Qatar enforce such an arrangement?

Bergdahl will soon be back in the United States. Already the recipient of praises from President Obama and others, he will be feted as a “hero” by some but not by all – especially many who served alongside him. The Code of Military Justice governing military personnel states that “desertion or attempt to desert” is punishable during time of war with whatever a military court decides, even including death. There is no likelihood that Bergdahl will meet death or even that he will be court-martialed. Nor will there be any happy recalling of their loss by families of the men who died searching for a man who surely disgraced himself while wearing the uniform of his country.

But surely the greater disgrace is that the military continues to be used (and abused) to unconstitutionally fulfill the role of world policeman, “spreading democracy” by interfering in other countries affairs, unnecessarily expending blood and treasure. Bring them home — now.

Mr. McManus served on active duty as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps for three years in the 1950s.