Bergdahl did not decide whether he would prefer to face a court-martial with a jury or one with only a judge, Associated Press reported.
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Major from Plymouth among 6 victims of Afghanistan attack
The official was not authorized to discuss the incident publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity. Today, the Taliban released a photograph of the bomber they claimed had attacked the Americans.
Sitting at attention in the courtroom, Bergdahl answered military judge Col. Christopher T. Frederick succinctly with, “Yes sir, I do”, when asked whether he understood his options.
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While they were at least mathematically alive in the playoff race, they had to play eight road games as opposed to six home games. He filled in for injured Karlos Williams the last few weeks and had a 19-yard touchdown run last week in Philadelphia .
Bergdahl wore an Army dress uniform with a dark blue jacket and closely cropped hair.
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This sets him up as a tragic character either ripe for redemption or just more tragedy, depending on where the story takes him. She is one of those female characters who kick ass without having to deliver a speech about how hard it is being a girl.
Col. Frederick set the next pretrial hearing in Bergdahl’s case for January 12.
If convicted at a general court-martial, Bergdahl could get up to five years for desertion and life in prison on the misbehavior charge. His freedom was part of a controversial swap approved by President Barack Obama in which five Taliban officials were released from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and moved to Qatar, where they are under strict supervision by the government there.
Bergdahl was arraigned Tuesday during a short hearing, and deferred entering a plea.
“The convening authority did not follow the advice of the hearing officer who heard the witnesses”, Fidell said Tuesday, adding he “had hoped the case would not go in this direction”.
Army Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl, who led the Bergdahl investigation, testified this year that imprisoning Bergdahl would be “inappropriate” because Dahl’s lengthy interview with the 29-year-old sergeant yielded no evidence that he was “sympathetic to the Taliban”.
The US Army Forces Command announced last week the charges against Bergdahl had been referred for trial by general court-martial. Legal databases and media accounts turn up only a few misbehavior cases since 2001, when fighting began in Afghanistan, followed by Iraq less than two years later. “I was capable of being what I appeared to be”, Bergdahl said.
Instead, he was captured by the Taliban and held captive for five years.
Bergdahl’s story is the focus of this season of the popular podcast, “Serial”.
Bergdahl, who is presently on administrative Army duty in San Antonio, said that once he left the outpost he realized he could face serious punishment and chose to emulate the fictional action hero, Jason Bourne, and collect intelligence on the Taliban so he could return to the US military with something to show for his absence.
“I was trying to prove to myself, I was trying to prove to the world, to anybody who used to know me…”
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The way Bergdahl tells it, he was deeply concerned about the leadership in his brigade, to the point he says he believed his comrades’ lives were at risk.
