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John McCain isn’t concerned with the legality of the prisoner swap designed to release Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Afghanistan — but he opposes the deal all the same. McCain also said he supports the drive from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to hold a hearing on Bergdahl — but lamented that it might not accomplish much. “It’s worthy of a hearing,” McCain said. “But, it’s done.”

Six soldiers died in the frantic search for Sgt. Bowe Bergdhal immediately after his mysterious disappearance five years ago, fueling the increasing backlash over the POW’s recovery. Former platoon mates of the now-recovered serviceman accused Bergdhal of deserting his post and blamed him for the unnecessary deaths of comrades. “I was pissed off then and I am even more so now with everything going on,” former Sgt. Matt Vierkant, a member of Bergdahl’s platoon, told CNN. “Bowe Bergdahl deserted during a time of war and his fellow Americans lost their lives searching for him.” -snip- The six men reportedly killed...

Although he was a private when he was first captured by the Taliban, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was promoted twice in captivity and is scheduled for another promotion to staff sergeant. CNN’s Barbara Starr reports that a defense official confirmed that Bergdahl is scheduled for a promotion to the rank of staff sergeant later in June of this year. Bergdahl was a private when he went missing and was promoted to the rank of specialist in June 2010. He was promoted in June 2011 to the rank of sergeant.

For five years, soldiers have been forced to stay silent about the disappearance and search for Bergdahl. Now we can talk about what really happened. It was June 30, 2009, and I was in the city of Sharana, the capitol of Paktika province in Afghanistan. As I stepped out of a decrepit office building into a perfect sunny day, a member of my team started talking into his radio. “Say that again,” he said. “There’s an American soldier missing?” There was. His name was Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, the only prisoner of war in the Afghan theater of operations....

Miranshah (Pakistan) (AFP) - Freed US soldier Bowe Bergdahl developed a love for Afghan green tea, taught his captors badminton, and even celebrated Christmas and Easter with the hardline Islamists, a Pakistani militant commander told AFP Sunday.

The prisoner exchange which brought back the only known American alive in Taliban custody did not get a ringing endorsement from the men who served with him in Afghanistan. While President Obama celebrated Bowe Bergdahl’s release with Bergdahl’s father in the Rose Garden, other soldiers lifted their voices in outrage over the high cost of the swap and called Bergdahl a deserter. Those protests have grown loud enough to grab the attention of CNN’s Jake Tapper: The sense of pride expressed by officials of the Obama administration at the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is not shared by...

The Afghan president is angry at being kept in the dark over a deal to free five Taliban leaders in exchange for a captured U.S. soldier, and accuses Washington of failing to back a peace plan for the war-torn country, a senior source said on Monday. "The president is now even more distrustful of U.S. intentions in the country," said the source at President Hamid Karzai's palace in Kabul, who declined to be identified. The palace official also said Karzai was worried about further deals being cut without his knowledge Karzai's press office said in a statement that the U.S....

Obama’s Taliban trade – one jihadi for five jihadists. Treason.

Bergdahl, released Saturday by the Taliban after being held captive nearly five years, will reunite with his family in San Antonio when he is flown here to be evaluated at the San Antonio Military Medical Center. Bergdahl, 28, will begin a reintegration process at the sprawling medical center, which has treated thousands of troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan and has experience with former POWs. ... He'll undergo more medical exams and structured debriefings at Landstuhl, and likely remain there three days before coming to San Antonio to be with family, receive additional care and face final debriefings.

The sense of pride expressed by officials of the Obama administration at the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is not shared by many of those who served with him -- veterans and soldiers who call him a deserter whose "selfish act" ended up costing the lives of better men. "I was pissed off then and I am even more so now with everything going on," said former Sergeant Matt Vierkant, a member of Bergdahl's platoon when he went missing on June 30, 2009. "Bowe Bergdahl deserted during a time of war and his fellow Americans lost their lives searching...

This was posted by a Marine friend. Also, this was also reportedly posted by CSM Jeff Mellinger (Petraeus’ top man in Iraq). It was sent to me by a friend in California. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was released by the Taliban yesterday in a prisoner swap. Bergdahl was the only living POW held by the Taliban. He was captured by the Taliban in 2009 in Afghanistan. The post is making the rounds today. Via Stormbringer: “From a friend who was there: ‘We were at OP Mest, Paktika Province, Afghanistan. It was a small outpost where B Co 1-501st INF (Airbone) ran...

Flashback: A reminder about Bowe Bergdahl’s desertion problem By Michelle Malkin • May 31, 2014 08:51 PM While many people jumped aboard the Bowe Bergdahl bandwagon, I was not one of them. His release today in exchange for five Taliban commanders who had been in custody at Gitmo underscores troubling questions that have persisted since his alleged abduction. Longtime readers will recall questions raised here about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance. Here’s a flashback from my July 20, 2009 blog post:

So.. Bowe abandoned his post to go help the Afghan people? WTF? Watching this news conference with his parents is a surreal and confusing experience.

After five years as a POW, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is headed home. But the circumstances of his capture by the Taliban in Afghanistan remain unclear, indicating he may have walked away from his base. For now, the story for US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is one of physical and mental recovery and reunion with his family. But very soon it will involve debriefings about the nearly five years of his captivity by Taliban fighters, who apparently held him in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan, where his infantry unit had been engaged in combat. Military and intelligence experts will want to...

As Twitchy has reported, President Obama ordered the release of five Gitmo detainees to secure the return of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from his Taliban captors in Afghanistan. Recently, a tweet was published from the account of Bowe Bergdahl’s father, Robert, which stated a desire to see all Gitmo detainees released. Here’s the tweet from Bob Bergdahl’s account, which was published May 28 and deleted Saturday night (at the time of publication the deletion of the tweet has not been acknowledged on the account): @ABalkhi I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners. God will repay for the death of...

The Taliban claimed in 2010 that [Sgt. Bowe] Bergdahl had converted to Islam and was teaching bomb-making to its jihadists. His father is a convert to Islam who has called for the release of the jihadists in Guantanamo and has implied that American troops are killing Afghan children. There is evidence that he was not captured, but walked away from his unit: “On July 2, two U.S. officials told The Associated Press the soldier had “just walked off” his base with three Afghans after his shift.” So we may have traded five jihadists for one jihadist.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said the U.S. did not negotiate with terrorists in the process of exchanging the transfer of five terrorism suspects for the release of the only American prisoner of war in Afghanistan. “We didn’t negotiate with terrorists,” Mr. Hagel said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I said and explained before, Sergeant Bergdahl is a prisoner of war. That’s a normal process in getting your prisoners back.” Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was handed over to U.S. special forces by the Taliban Saturday, with the government of Qatar serving as a go-between. Qatar is taking custody of five...

Three years ago, a 23-year-old soldier walked off his base in Afghanistan and into the hands of the Taliban. Now he’s a crucial pawn in negotiations to end the war. Will the Pentagon leave a man behind? Bowe's own tour of duty in Afghanistan mirrored the larger American experience in the war – marked by tragedy, confusion, misplaced idealism, deluded thinking and, perhaps, a moment of insanity. And it is with Bowe that the war will likely come to an end. On May 1st, in a surprise visit to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, President Obama announced that...

Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has issued a rare public statement hailing the exchange of five Guantanamo Bay detainees for a Taliban-held US soldier as a "big victory". Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, 28, was handed to US forces in Afghanistan on Saturday. US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has defended the exchange amid criticism Congress was not given 30 days' notice before the detainees were released. He said the US had to act quickly to save the soldier's life. Sgt Bergdahl, who is said to be in good condition and has been flown to Germany for more treatment, was the only...

A captured American soldier is training Taliban fighters bomb-making and ambush skills, according to one of his captors and Afghan intelligence officials. Private Bowe Bergdahl disappeared in June 2009 while based in eastern Afghanistan and is thought to be the only U.S. serviceman in captivity. The 24-year-old has converted to Islam and now has the Muslim name Abdullah, one of his captors told The Sunday Times A Taliban deputy district commander in Paktika, who called himself Haji Nadeem, told the newspaper that Bergdahl taught him how to dismantle a mobile phone and turn it into a remote control for a...