US SOLDIER RISKS FACING LIFE SENTENCE

Photo by Caroline Ubili courtesy DBS Asaba

U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is the man in question charged with desertion and endangering fellow soldiers and from all indications is likely to face a military court in Fort Bragg. This was announced on Monday the 14th of December 2015 by Gen. Robert Abrams the commander of the U.S. Army Forces command

 

It was noted that Bergdahl disappeared from his base in Afghanistan in June 2009 and was held in captivity by the Taliban until the U.S. released five Taliban detainees in a controversial exchange for Bergdahl in May 2014. Six troops died in the months following Bergdahl's disappearance during missions aimed at finding and rescuing him.

The date of the arraignment hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will be announced at a later time.

Lt. Col. Mark Visger, the Army investigator who led the preliminary hearing into the charges Bergdahl faces, recommended against Bergdahl facing any jail time in October.

And Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl, who led the investigation into Bergdahl's actions in Afghanistan, testified in September that jail time would be "inappropriate" and said he did not find "any evidence to corroborate the reporting that Bergdahl was ... sympathetic to the Taliban."

When confronted Sgt Bowe Bergdahl narrated his orderal; i only realized i had made a big mistake that night by leaving my unit in the midnight of June 2009 but "I'm going, 'Good grief, I'm in over my head,'" Bergdahl said in a "Serial" podcast released on Thursday.

"Suddenly, it really starts to sink in that I really did something bad. Or, not bad, but I really did something serious," he said.

So he set off to gather intelligence and mimic a film idol: Jason Bourne.

He decided to collect intelligence on the Taliban in hopes it would help him eventually return to the U.S. military with something to show for his absence.

"Doing what I did is me saying that I am like, I don't know, Jason Bourne," Bergdahl told Mark Boal, the filmmaker whose interviews with the Army private first class will make up the second season of "Serial."

"I had this fantastic idea that I was going to prove to the world that I was the real thing," Bergdahl said. "You know, that I could be what it is that all those guys out there that go to the movies and watch those movies -- they all want to be that -- but I wanted to prove I was that."

It didn't work. Bergdahl, armed only with a knife, said he was quickly captured by Taliban fighters on motorcycles, starting what would be nearly five years in captivity -- ended only when President Barack Obama swapped five Taliban detainees who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility for Bergdahl's freedom in May 2014.

Bergdahl pushed back against claims from other soldiers that he'd left a note behind expressing his disillusionment, saying he'd left no such note. It signaled that he could oppose some elements of the version of events from his departure made public so far.

The recent act of military indiscipline was in Nigeria were some soldiers were currently on trial to face the drums, could this mean the war against terrorism is a done deal or the people of the world can still rely on their various armed forces to protect them, only time will tell