A military police officer patrols the perimeter of the US Army…
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Sergeant Bergdahl left his post in southeastern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009 but had no intentions of leaving the army, his lead attorney Eugene Fidell tells the AP.
He said he “couldn’t say” how the search affected the Army’s overall mission in Afghanistan.
“Sgt. Bergdahl has missed birthdays and holidays and the simple moments with family and friends”, the President said when the soldier returned. Each described the grueling search for Bergdahl and said it put other soldiers in danger.
Capt. John Billings, the post’s commander, suffered from dysentery and soiled his uniform, which he then had to wear for days, he said.
Lawyers for Bergdahl are likely to argue during the Article 32 hearing that his years of being held captive by the Taliban were punishment enough, according to legal experts. Bowe Bergdahl’s company commander, is questioned during a preliminary hearing to determine if Sgt.
Bergdahl’s Article 32 hearing at the Army’s Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston could take days as both sides present evidence, call and cross-examine witnesses. If Bergdahl is tried and convicted of the misbehavior charge, he could get life in prison.
He was freed in a prisoner swap that sent five Taliban leaders who were being held at Guantanamo to Qatar, where they had to remain for a year.
The first of the prosecution’s three witnesses to testify, Bergdahl’s platoon leader, Capt. John Billings, initially recalled him as a “great soldier by all accounts”. Although nobody died because of the 45-day search, they said the soldiers got little food or rest, endured searing-hot temperatures and encountered more improvised explosive devices than they ordinarily would have. Margaret Kurz, opened Thursday by insisting that Bergdahl, disgruntled, acted with “deliberate disregard when he left his post” and “snuck out … intending to draw attention to himself so he could have a personal audience with the general”.
While questioning Billings on Thursday, one of Bergdahl’s attorneys asked if Billings knew about Bergdahl’s mental health history, including his psychological discharge from the U.S. Coast Guard or that an Army psychiatric board had concluded that Bergdahl possessed “severe mental defect”. He said Bergdahl had no disciplinary record in Afghanistan, where his unit rotated between a base and the remote, spartan hilltop post where he disappeared near the Pakistan border.
His defense team is led by Professor Eugene Fidell of Yale Law School, who declined to comment to the media but has said publicly that the highly negative publicity surrounding the prisoner exchange could influence the case.
The Article 32 hearing will resume on Friday and may continue through the weekend as more witnesses testify.
Silvino said some of the thousands of soldiers who took part in the search were angry about it because they felt Bergdahl had deserted.
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An earlier version of this story was corrected to reflect that the hearing is taking place at Fort Sam Houston, not Fort Sam Hood. He could also be dishonorably discharged, have his rank reduced and be made to forfeit all pay, reports The Associated Press. Abrams will review the report and decide whether to proceed with a court martial or perhaps seek discipline via another route.
