Posted on 07/07/2014 3:25:51 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Recently released prisoner of war U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is a man I can identify with. On April 20, 1965, I was flying a night combat mission in an A4C Skyhawk over what was then called North Vietnam. My own bombs malfunctioned upon release during a run on enemy trucks. They exploded just below my airplane, blowing the wings and tail section off. Instantly I was in a whirling cockpit hurtling toward Earth, over enemy territory, but managed to eject and parachute to the ground. I spent the next four days on the run through the jungle before being captured. I then spent the next 2,855 days as a captive POW in North Vietnam.
During those years I – and other POWs – endured terrible conditions and periodic torture sessions for political propaganda, public display and false confessions. We each resisted to our individual utmost but ultimately our captors extracted written confessions (ones that we made as improbable and silly as possible) from everyone.
I’ve been asked if I was a POW with U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The answer is no – John McCain was a POW with me. You see, he got there two and a half years after I was captured. John and I were in the same company at the U.S. Naval Academy, so I had a prior personal relationship with him. I say this because I can’t understand his hawkish attitude toward getting involved in more wars, let alone his attitude toward the prisoner exchange that led to the release of Bowe Bergdahl. I heard John say the price of exchange for Sgt. Bergdahl, five of our Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was too high because they might be dangerous when released. Maybe he has forgotten that in 1973 our country made an exchange to bring 801 of us back home. The price of that exchange? A country.
We agreed to give up and withdraw our troops in exchange for Vietnam. Could anyone dispute that there were dangerous people in North Vietnam (maybe 30 million of them) at that time? In fact they could – and did – harm American soldiers for the next two years before we completely withdrew in 1975. So I don’t hear McCain complaining about that prisoner swap.
Speaking for myself, I’m pretty happy with both of them.
No one could possibly believe the Taliban treated Bergdahl well. Reports so far indicate the Taliban confined him to total darkness in a small metal cage for weeks at a time. They also suggest he was beaten and otherwise tortured during his nearly five years as a POW and that he was extremely ill when he was finally released. Yet there is a clatter of nonsense coming from right-wing pundits and multiple armchair warriors, writing and appearing on national TV, arguing that we should have left Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, an American POW, in Taliban hands.
It’s easy for political hacks and chicken hawk commentators to discount the value of one American soldier, especially when there is a perceived partisan political benefit to doing so. Since he was rescued, Bergdahl has been the target of constant attacks. There have been suggestions that he deserted, that he did not deserve to be rescued and that he was somehow worth less than five members of the Taliban. Even his family has had to endure violent threats and his hometown canceled a parade in his honor because of the vitriol it inspired. In my opinion this is simply un-American, unpatriotic and unconscionable. The circumstances of Sgt. Bergdahl’s departure from his unit and capture are still being investigated. And he might very well have had the same popular political views now held by a majority of Americans: that we can’t win a war in Afghanistan and should get out as soon as possible. It’s true that if he did hold those views, he should not have acted on them while involved in active combat duty. And tragically, some of his fellow soldiers may have faced Taliban attacks during the search for him. But none of that obviates our country’s sacred obligation not to leave its fighting men and women in enemy hands. The Taliban held Bergdahl for nearly five years. Five years of brutality at the hands of our enemies.
There are real costs to war. I know that in a way that most of our politicians never will. And there are real risks; make no mistake that releasing five Taliban members was a risk. But to suggest that because there is a risk to trading five Taliban members for our own soldier we should not have done so is cowardly and un-American. Moreover, following that line would put our men and women in uniform at further risk. Why would the enemy keep captured soldiers alive if they knew we didn’t value them enough to exchange enemy prisoners for them? I believe this prisoner swap for Bergdahl was brave and honorable. I am disgusted and sickened by the armchair warriors and political hacks that have come out of the woodwork to attack Bergdahl’s release from captivity. The majority of them are political partisans who oppose everything the president does and they are using this young soldier as a means to attack the president. My hope in all this is that Americans will eventually understand the truth underlying this incident, and that truth is this: We can never give up on our young men and women who we send into harm’s way. The broader lesson is that we shouldn’t be getting into all these needless wars, wars that we can’t win or benefit from to begin with. We should use better judgment and diplomacy to avoid the terrible costs in blood and treasure. But who knows? Maybe this incident with Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will create a greater national discussion that will bring sensibility and humanity back to our country. To that end, I’d like to offer a personal and heartfelt note: Welcome home Bowe.
Phillip Butler, PhD, a retired U.S. Navy aviator, is a peace and environmental activist who lives on the Monterey Peninsula. For more, visit www.philbutlerphd.com
Agreed. I don’t see any issue with being grateful for Mr. Butler’s honorable service, and for acknowledging the suffering he went through as a POW.
But I am not going to allow that to act as a shield. This is serious, and if he wants to weigh in, I am going to look at his life the same way I look at the life of Benedict Arnold. I can appreciate how valuable General Arnold was to the colonials, but once he fell in with the enemy (as someone who is a hard-core liberal in modern America invariably must) then that becomes part of the entire equation.
I am going to guess that, at the time he got shot down, probably had experience as the officer in charge of a department (Line, Ordinance, etc) before he got shot down.
There are a lot of officers in those positions who aren’t leaders. Some learn and get better, some don’t. Don’t know what category he would be in.
I agree with you except he can distinguish between captured or deserted. He just won’t.
Look the man spent over 2000 days in a POW camp. That will screw up your mind.
He is wrong. Very very wrong. But his head is screwed up.
Yeah i know. I am being generous.
Phil believes the line of the Administration that Bowe served honorably. That’s the story and he’s sticking to it.
How sad. His brains obviously got totally scrambled while in captivity.
I understand the distinction you make.
Given the role of liberalism in dismantling our country (and his complete collaboration on everything they do, social, liberal and military) I am not inclined to be as generous as you are.
I have, for some time, viewed him as a domestic enemy of the Constitution.
If his wingman went north and gave up his plane?
I agree...in most normal people, something would break.
But he is not only allowing himself to be used as a dupe, he believes the leftist agenda and is a spokesman for it.
John McCain was, for a short period, my commanding officer in a training squadron a few years after his release. That is all I know of him, other than what I read in the media.
But the fact he is fully in support of policies which are destructive and allows himself to be used as a bludgeon against conservatives when it suits the needs of the Left, well...that did it for me.
My silent support for this man went on long, long after I should have given it up. I am grateful to some Freepers who took the time to discuss it with me rationally instead of just flaming me to pieces.
I had to come to it in my own time, and getting scorched would have likely just made me stubborn.
But I do respect you for being generous. I don’t believe he merits it, but it is chivalrous of you to extend him that courtesy.
I wonder how Dr. Phil feels about a US Marine down in Mexico chained to a bed?
His whole life, especially in childhood, was scrambled.
when he got back, his wife had dumped him.
He is a peace activist in California.
He says he doesn’t know what he’s going to do with his war memorabilia when he’s gone.
?
The media hunts for these guys. There are hundreds of former POWs, but they find this guy.
The guy is a full blown nut case.
Here are his writings on everything from Aids Awareness 1992, to why he won’t vote for McCain 2008, to the “Swift Boating” of John Kerry 2004, to “internet myths about Jane Fonda”, etc, etc.
http://phillipbutlerphd.com/writings/
I don’t think it’s generous at all.
NOT at All.
There are hundreds of former POWs who have had healthy productive lives and who tell of their time of captivity served with honor and distinction.
To take one guy’s word, whom the media hunted down for his activity with the promoters of ‘social justice’, a man who is self described as having ‘given up on God’ because of the way one misguided preacher acted toward blacks, while other POWs turned to God, is not generous to those POWs at all.
How Freepers don’t smell a liberal hit piece from a mile away, I do not know, but just Stop.
Being a POW, or getting crucified, CAN, not WILL, as you claim, scramble your brain, but certainly not necessarily.
That's all you need to know.......
Does this guy govern? No? Then i really don’t give a fig what he says.
If he takes the reins of power it is different then a private citizen commenting. Much as the author can’t distinguish between a captured soldier and a deserter, you can’t distinguish between a private citizen saying whatever the hell he wants to say and a politician with power. Or a media person with power. Big difference. Walk in his shoes first. He is not John Mccain. He is a broken war horse. Leave him in the pasture and bring him an apple.
“the man spent over 2000 days in a POW camp. That will screw up your mind.”
No way.
You are insulting every other honorable man who served our country honorably in POW camp whose minds are not only not screwed up, but who continue to serve our country and it’s founding principals.
No sale.
Remind me. What am i selling?
It’s in the post you are responding to. In quotes.
I’ll try again, but I can see now we’re not spending valuable time here.
That being a POW will do this to you.
No. It is not true, and that is proven by former POWs.
I don’t give a tinkers damn if you agree with me or not. I think that that is the root of your confusion.
I thought I understood the nature of the comment...DariusBane WAS being “generous”, in my opinion.
I know, because I saw myself in my treatment of McCain for a long time.
I knew inside what he was, but didn’t want to reconcile myself to it.
As for POWs and veterans of every stripe, just because most of them didn’t crack doesn’t mean it isn’t possible or even excusable for one of them to crack. And even if one person cracks, it doesn’t necessarily translate to dishonor on that person or even the people who didn’t crack.
Just my two cents on it.
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