Posted on 06/04/2014 3:48:58 AM PDT by xzins
Five years ago, I publicly raised questions about Bowe Bergdahl’s desertion from Blackfoot Company, 1-501 Infantry (Airborne), 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division. A few weeks after his so-called “capture” in late June 2009, three conflicting accounts surfaced: U.S. officials told the Associated Press Bergdahl had “walked off” the base with three Afghans; the Taliban claimed on its website that “a drunken American soldier had come out of his garrison” and into their arms; and Bergdahl claimed in his Taliban “hostage video” that he had “lagged behind a patrol” before being captured.
I asked on my blog: Were the AP’s sources mistaken? Or is the disturbing first account the right one? What about the “three Afghans” Pfc. Bergdahl reportedly “just walked off” with after his shift? Who are they? What’s going on? Five years ago, one of the brave soldiers who risked his life to search for Bergdahl answered my questions, and I published his statement on July 20, 2009:
“I know the story and the accounts that he was drunk or that he was lagging behind on patrol are not true — this soldier planned this move for a long time. He walked off the post with a day’s supply of water and had written down before that he wanted to live in the mountains. … He is an embarrassment to everyone who has worn the uniform.”
After news broke this weekend of President Obama’s trade of five high-level Taliban commanders at Gitmo for Bergdahl’s “freedom,” I heard from another soldier who served on the search team. “Many of my brothers died because of Bergdahl’s actions, and this has been a very hard day for all Geronimos,” he told me after documenting his proof of service.
Other journalists ignored his attempts to get the truth out. My source still holds a highly sensitive position, so you won’t see him all over the cable news shows. But he wants all of you to know the hell he and his comrades have been reliving: “I was assigned to 1st Platoon of Blackfoot Company,” based out of Forward Operating Base (FOB) Salerno in Khost, Afghanistan, he said. “Bowe’s platoon was assigned to conduct security and stability operations out of FOB Sharana and other locations in Paktika.
The untold background that led to Bowe’s situation involves an article and pictures published by Guardian reporter Sean Smith.” One of the battalion leaders punished soldiers, including Bergdahl (who had been photographed snoozing in his armored vehicle), with extra guard duty assignments for conducting operations in an unprofessional manner at Outpost MEST (OP MEST). “Bergdahl was already disenchanted with the war effort,” my source said, “and I think the extra duty was the last straw for him.”
On the morning of June 30, 2009, “Bergdahl completed a guard shift, removed his equipment, weapon and sensitive items, and left OP MEST with several Afghan security forces personnel. He took a compass, a couple bottles of water and two knives and his journal. His exact intentions may never be known, but he willingly walked off OP MEST and was secured by enemy forces not long after.”
My source, who had been up the previous night on a separate raid, was “shaken awake” on the afternoon Bergdahl disappeared. “We were told there was a DUSTWUN (Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown), and to pack for a three-hour assault. We received a brief that Bergdahl was missing, and we were going to get him. … Sometime after dark we boarded CH-47′s to assault an objective thought to contain Bergdahl. We never made it to the landing zone, as the helicopters took very heavy fire on approach to the objective and had to divert.”
The soldier’s Focused Targeting Force (FTF) platoon was not told that it was being diverted to OP MEST. When they landed, he said, “We thought we were in enemy territory, so I recall my friends and I screaming ‘Vehicles’ and preparing to engage with the LAW and SMAW-D rockets we carried. We soon realized the lights were from RG-31 and Maxpro MRAPs, friendly vehicles, and de-escalated the situation. The CH-47′s had dropped us off at OP MEST and did not relay that information.”
With that near-disaster over, the soldier recounted: “We averaged 18 to 22 kilometers a day on foot, clearing house to house, room to room looking for Bergdahl. … We even went as far as rappelling down wells and crawling through tunnels to look for him.”
The standard procedure for recapturing Bergdahl was not “normal,” the soldier noted. “He was very good with knives, and trained to throw and fight hand-to-hand with knives. We did not know the mental state of Bergdahl at the time. All we knew was he left on his own, he caused us lots of hardship, and if we entered a room and saw him, we would put him down because he could attack us.”
On the morning of July 4, 2009, the soldier recalled, “we assaulted several objectives looking for Bergdahl. … We executed the mission without incident and were waiting to be exfiltrated. Our aircraft were in sight when they turned and flew in the opposite direction. At the time we did not know why, but we were stranded. The enemy took advantage of Bergdahl’s capture and attacked numerous outposts that morning.” “Combat Outpost Zerok was almost overrun, multiple soldiers were wounded, and PFCs Justin Casillas and Aaron Fairbairn lost their lives fighting that day,” the soldier told me.
(I wrote about their deaths in my July 8, 2009, column, not knowing they were related to the Bergdahl mess.) My source continued: “We learned later that our exfiltration aircraft were diverted to support COP Zerok, and that the situation there was so dire that at one point there were two Apache gunships on station that went Winchester, meaning they expended all ordinance and ammunition, but they would not abandon the soldiers still fighting, so they resorted to low-level unarmed passes to distract the enemy.
Bergdahl’s actions undoubtedly caused these events. We spent the remainder of Independence Day walking in the desert … waiting for aircraft that did not come for many, many hours.” He continued: “A few days later, we (FTF) conducted a daylight raid on some tents looking for Bergdahl. We took heavy small arms and RPG fire on approach and ran off the CH-47s in contact. Our entire element engaged the enemy, who turned out to be a Taliban shadow governor and his bodyguards. … Multiple people died that day. … All of this happened because Bergdahl got tired of playing soldier. The remainder of that deployment was focused on recovery efforts. Countless members of the brigade were wounded, and we lost good friends, among them PFC Matthew Martinek and 2LT Darryn Andrews. I have no doubt these great men would be alive if Bergdahl did not leave.”
In addition to Andrews, Casillas, Fairbairn and Martinek, PFC Morriss Walker and Staff Sergeants Clayton Bowen, Kurt Curtiss and Michael Murphrey died as a result of Bergdahl’s abandonment.
That’s eight dead American soldiers (not six, as the rest of the media have reported) betrayed by selfish Bergdahl and reckless President Obama.
My source did not mince words: “The fact that our government negotiated with terrorists and our enemy is incomprehensible. The fact that they exchanged five war criminals for a traitor is sickening. The worst part for those of us that suffered through that time is that PFC Bergdahl is being hailed as some kind of hero. He was automatically promoted to Specialist and Sergeant, ranks he does not deserve and did not earn. I have no doubt he will receive back pay for these past five years, a substantial sum. There will be book deals, and his family are celebrities. I am glad he is safe, and happy for his family, but he should return home to face a court martial.”
Are you listening, Capitol Hill and America? The Bowe Bergdahl mess isn’t just a story about one deserter, but two.
There’s the muddle-headed lowlife who left his post and brothers behind. And there’s the corrupt commander in chief who has jeopardized more American soldiers’ lives to “rescue” Bergdahl by bowing to the Taliban, while snubbing the surviving heroes and the eight dead American soldiers who lost their lives because of him. This cannot stand.
Michelle Malkin is the author of “Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies” (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com. Also see, The Data-Mining Body Monitors in Our Schools
You are an American Hero. Period. There is no debate. God Bless you.
Evil opposes Good. It has to. That is what it does.
Commander-in-Chief’s Definition of “Honorable Service” Includes Anti-American Actions in Uniform
via Facebook ^ | Monday, June 2, 2014 | Sarah Palin
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3162714/posts
Commander-in-Chief’s Definition of “Honorable Service”
Includes Anti-American Actions While in Uniform; He Just Destroyed Troops Morale
The Obama admin tells America this soldier with honor and distinction.”
No, Mr. President, a soldier expressing horrid anti-American beliefs – even boldly putting them in writing and unabashedly firing off his messages while in uniform, just three days before he left his unit on foot – is not “honorable service.” Unless that is your standard.
Please use your White House Rose Garden to praise the truly honorable service of our good U.S. troops who were killed in their search for Sgt. Bergdahl. Praise the soldiers who fought with everything they had to defeat Islamic terrorists, those whom you just freed from prison. Our men gave all. Our surviving combat vets will forever live with the effects of the missions they willingly engaged in to protect you, our country, and certainly their brothers and sisters who are proud to wear the uniform.
You blew it again, Barack Obama, by negotiating away any leverage against the bad guys as these bad guys – Osama Bin Laden’s partners in evil crime – joyfully celebrate their “win” in the deal you sealed.
The story “you haven’t heard” was sitting on her blog for 5 years?
......”Why more Americans are not yet descended upon DC regarding this travesty confuses and disheartens me”....
The tipping point has yet to arrive and when it comes there may not be enough of us as so many today do not care one way or the other.
I have no problem believing it’s quite possible our nation may have to suffer what none imagined possible before it wakes up ...and ACTS.
There is truly some ‘very’ disturbing things about the entire family that is highly questionable. IMO I wouldn't call them Americans as we know Americans to be...or once were...rather they appear to have mingled with Hinduism and various other foreign interests. Rather like the left-overs of the 60’s new age bunch...their use of verbage often reflects that when they speak about their son.
My dad’s aunt had her first husband drafted to WWI; he came back incurably insane. Her son was drafted to WWII and came back incurably insane. My dad watched as this cousin’s friends and family handcuffed him and put him in a wagon to be taken to a hospital for the rest of his life.
My dad was drafted to Korea and came back with PTSD; he and my mom have just now finally acknowledged and named what they and we kids have lived through.
Sometimes people who do the right thing get nothing but grief and trouble in return. It stinks. Ultimate justice doesn’t happen here; it only happens in eternity. For those who are in Christ, all our wrongs have been paid for by the blood of Christ, and what good we’ve been able to do will receive the greatest praise we could ever hope for: the “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” from the One who gave His life for us.
They spit on Jesus, too - on Friday. But that didn’t stop what happened on Sunday. Your day is coming too. Thank you for your service and for what you endured, and I pray that you’ll be blessed here on earth until the Day you hear the “Well-done” from the TRUE commander-in-chief. In that Day there won’t be confusion over who did right and who did wrong. On that Day every knee will bow to Christ - even those who spent a lifetime mocking Him and His people. The truth will be known, and those who did right will be vindicated. The sorrows of today will seem tiny compared to the joy of what is ahead.
We have abandoned God thinking Libertarianism is Conservative, meanwhile our enemy has been busily recruiting dependent voters and creating new ones from illegals.
Among the Clergy maybe only 5%.
House Hearings are the place where justice goes to die.
Yep. No paid attention. Info on Bergdahl apparently was ignored
Can any of my army brethren or a Marine confirm a story of a drunken troop? I thought General order one forbade US Troops from drinking alcohol?
That moron Hagel should read this article.
He just might learn somthing.
State Dept. people are resigning over Obama’s foreign policy:
The Obama administration’s recently retired ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, took to CNN to blast the administration’s policy, declaring that he resigned from his post because he was “no longer in a position where I felt I could defend American policy.” Ford flatly declared that “there’s really nothing we can point to that’s been very successful in our policy,” and assessed that “had there been more military assistance and logistical assistance and even things like cash… the opposition would have probably been able to gain more ground a couple of years ago… [and] the regime would have been much weaker.”
He emphasized that “it is now widely known that the State Department thought we needed to give much more help to the armed opposition, and that was as long as two years ago,” and urged the administration to launch new efforts to help moderate rebel elements, who are battling both the Assad regime and Sunni jihadists.
Reading the interview, Al Monitor remarked that Ford is not the only Syria envoy to leave the post.
...source: CNN
Thank you very much for your response. That is what I work for every day, to hear my Master say, “Well done my good and faithful servant, enter into My Kingdom.” That is what I work for.
bump
Amen!
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