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Bergdahl Was In Unit Known For Its Troubles (Here come the smears)
The New York Times ^ | June 7, 2014 | Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Eric Schmitt

Posted on 06/07/2014 7:32:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

The platoon was, an American military official would assert years later, “raggedy.”

On their tiny, remote base, in a restive sector of eastern Afghanistan at an increasingly violent time of the war, they were known to wear bandannas and cutoff T-shirts. Their crude observation post was inadequately secured, a military review later found. Their first platoon leader, and then their first platoon sergeant, were replaced relatively early in the deployment because of problems.

But the unit — Second Platoon, Blackfoot Company in the First Battalion, 501st Regiment — might well have remained indistinguishable from scores of other Army platoons in Afghanistan had it not been for one salient fact: This was the team from which Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl disappeared on June 30, 2009.

In the years since Sergeant Bergdahl’s capture by the Taliban, and even more since his release last week in a contentious prisoner exchange for five Taliban fighters, much has been written suggesting that he was a misfit soldier in something of a misfit platoon that stumbled through its first months in Afghanistan and might have made it too easy for him to walk away, as his fellow soldiers say he did.

Indeed, an internal Army investigation into the episode concluded that the platoon suffered from lapses in discipline and security in the period before Sergeant Bergdahl — a private first class at the time who was promoted while in captivity — disappeared into Paktika Province, two officials briefed on the report said.

But their problems in many ways reflected those of the Pentagon’s strategy writ large across Afghanistan at that moment of the war. The platoon was sent to a remote location with too few troops to seriously confront an increasingly aggressive insurgency, which controlled many villages in the region....

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; army; bergdahl; bergdahlplatoon; bergdahltruthfile; blamethemessenger; cultureofcorruption; dnctalkingpoints; ericschmitt; hastings; military; obama; obamascandals; pravdamedia; richardaoppeljr; smeancampaign; swiftboating; taliban; thebiglie; unamericanactivities; warcrimes; yellowjournalism
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To: Joe 6-pack; 2ndDivisionVet

Fun exercise for a Saturday night. Try to find the STRAC soldiers in this video -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk57BxEiXbk


41 posted on 06/07/2014 8:00:19 PM PDT by shibumi (Cover it with gas and set it on fire.)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

So the fact that the Pentagon undermanned an FOB made Bergdahl desert and join the Taliban. Yeh that will hold up.


42 posted on 06/07/2014 8:00:59 PM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose o f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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When will the Left accuse Blackfoot Company of kidnapping Bergdahl, placing him in the control of the Taliban?


43 posted on 06/07/2014 8:02:52 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Joe 6-pack
Bing freaking go. There’s an old military axiom that says inspection ready units aren’t fit for combat, and combat ready units aren’t fit for inspection...
44 posted on 06/07/2014 8:03:30 PM PDT by onona (IÂ’ve pretty much given up on sanity returning.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
That is still no excuse for trading 5 terrorists leaders...

Not buying it a$$holes


45 posted on 06/07/2014 8:04:01 PM PDT by darkwing104 (Forgive but don't forget)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Hell, if I’d ever been in a “raggedy” unit I would have laid down arms and marched my ass right over to the neighborhood VC cadre!


46 posted on 06/07/2014 8:04:03 PM PDT by clintonh8r (Can Juan Williams possibly be that stupid?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

JESUS LIVING LORD FUNNY THEY DIDN’T DO THIS WITH CALLEY’S UNIT WHICH WAS ABOUT AS RAGGEDY AS YOU CAN IMAGINE... FILLED WITH SPARES, REPEATEDLY EMPTIED, 4FS, ETC. HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME “THE UNIT” IS THE BULLY, THE VICTIMIZER. THE MARINES ARE THE CREATORS OF TRAITORS...

When will the feminized former America wake up?


47 posted on 06/07/2014 8:04:18 PM PDT by golux
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Yes I agree. The platoon should have fraged him after the first dissertion but they carried on with discipline and focus. He was a traitor in my view and should now be executed. obama must now be impeached and sued by the parents on the dead ordered to find the SOB. obama is a scum bag.


48 posted on 06/07/2014 8:05:10 PM PDT by SADMILLIE
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Typical lefty tactic. Smear everyone and then you muddy the waters so that everyone is tinged with guilt and Bergdahl the traitor is made into a victim. We can see through all this but the useless low info crowd will have been mollified. The mainstream media is absolutely shameful in their covering up for the Dems.


49 posted on 06/07/2014 8:05:23 PM PDT by dowcaet
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To: Georgia Girl 2

“So the fact that the Pentagon undermanned an FOB made Bergdahl desert and join the Taliban. Yeh that will hold up.”

In today’s America, that would be a good bet. And George W. Bush will be to blame.


50 posted on 06/07/2014 8:05:47 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo (Learn To Search. Ask Me How.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Eric Schmitt: probably nepotism hires who started with a hypothesis and then did the research that got them to the conclusion. You can tell these types who are “searching to bolster their conclusion” because they call themselves “journalists, searching for the truth.”


51 posted on 06/07/2014 8:07:32 PM PDT by golux
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Collaborators at the NYT certainly are a busy bunch.

I wonder of they’ll have any time to uncover Obama’s College Records and find out why he was listed as a Foreign Student?


52 posted on 06/07/2014 8:08:20 PM PDT by Kickass Conservative (If Cancer were Contagious, they would call it Liberalism...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

If they were “raggedy” who could blame them with the ROEs that Obummer put in place. He hates the military,and they know it.

http://rt.com/usa/battlefield-deaths-rules-engagement-change-862/

.


53 posted on 06/07/2014 8:10:02 PM PDT by Mears
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

NBC face Meet the Depressed will be a belly laugh. I will Tape. I expect them to come out with this tripe, I fully expect slander suits to fly. This is contrived bull shit but what is happening is a complete disaffection of hard corp military— or what I mean is —hatred of that traitor president.


54 posted on 06/07/2014 8:10:59 PM PDT by SADMILLIE
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To: dowcaet
If they used the same effort here on the IRS, VA and Benghazi they might have some moral high ground...


55 posted on 06/07/2014 8:12:17 PM PDT by darkwing104 (Forgive but don't forget)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“I’d like to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering Generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their General’s bowel movements or their Colonel’s piles, an army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country. The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display, but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That’s the army in which I should like to fight.”
Jean Lartéguy


56 posted on 06/07/2014 8:13:39 PM PDT by mikefive (RLTW)
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To: golux

They were soldiers, not Marines.


57 posted on 06/07/2014 8:14:29 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (I will raise $2Million USD for Cruz and/or Palin's next run, what will you do?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I think I see what they’re doing here, so let me try to translate the substance of the story (given to the Slimes by the White House).
See, Bergdahl was like idealistic Private Chris Taylor in the movie `Platoon.’ And his sergeant (below) must have been similar to ruthless, bloodthirsty Staff Sergeant Barnes; unhappy with the lack of discipline and with the fact that the Army wasn’t like the Peace Corp (and the presence of weapons? although per the Slimes, he was a fierce warrior) Private Bergdahl—they keep calling him sergeant for some reason—wandered off to see if he could find happiness and enlightenment in, say, the mountains of China or Nepal but, unfortunately, was captured by peace-loving indigenous Afghani freedom fighters.
And the four or five Afghanis traded for him were only foot soldiers, or garden variety `fighters,’ so no biggie after all and let’s all just move along.

” ...replaced by the platoon’s sergeant first class, who was popular and respected by the troops. Then, a few months later, the sergeant found himself in trouble after pictures appeared online showing some in the platoon wearing bandannas and cutoff T-shirts. Such garb was not uncommon at remote combat outposts, but it angered and embarrassed commanders, and it helped lead to the sergeant’s dismissal soon after Sergeant Bergdahl disappeared.”

Amazing isn’t it, how after five years Sergeant Bergdahl lost his English? He’s completely tongue-tied.
In a criminal trial where everyone knows the defendant did it, a smart defense attorney prohibits his client from taking the stand.
So what have we heard from the one person who would know exactly what happened here, Bergdahl?

crickets


58 posted on 06/07/2014 8:15:40 PM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives)
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To: molson209

There are parts of Texas in which the guy would need some serious protection!

He has little to look forward to in the US, for sure.

He could probably live somewhat safely in Massachusetts.


59 posted on 06/07/2014 8:18:26 PM PDT by Cen-Tejas (it's the debt bomb stupid!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
This is trouble:
60 posted on 06/07/2014 8:21:29 PM PDT by windcliff
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