Bowe Bergdahl, Once Missing U.S. Soldier, Charged With Desertion
March 25, 2015
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier who was recovered in Afghanistan last spring after five years in captivity, is being charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, his lawyer said Wednesday.
Eugene Fidell, Bergdahl’s attorney, told The Washington Post that his client was handed a charge sheet on Tuesday. Army officials announced they will provide an update in his case at 3:30 p.m. at Fort Bragg, N.C., but declined to discuss new developments ahead of the news conference.
Bergdahl, 28, went missing from his base in Paktika province on June 30, 2009, and is believed to have grown disillusioned with the U.S. military’s mission in Afghanistan. He was held captive in Pakistan by the Haqqani network, an insurgent group allied with the Taliban, until the White House swapped him for five Taliban officials in a deal brokered through the government of Qatar.
The charges come after a lengthy investigation launched last June after his recovery and a review by Gen. Mark A. Milley, the commanding general of U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg. Bergdahl has faced a slew of accusations from his fellow soldiers that he abandoned them on the battlefield and triggered a manhunt that diverted resources from the war effort and put lives in danger.
Article 85, desertion, applies to a service member who “quits his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service.” The maximum sentence for those convicted is death, although no soldier has faced that punishment since 1944, when Pvt. Eddie Slovik was executed by a firing squad after running away from combat duty in France.
Article 99, misbehavior before the enemy, applies to a service member who has run away in the face of the enemy, abandoned his unit, cast aside his weapon or ammunition or willfully failed “to do his utmost to encounter, engage, capture, or destroy any enemy troops, combatants, vessels, aircraft, or any other thing, which it is his duty so to encounter, engage, capture, or destroy.”
Thousands of U.S. service members are believed to have deserted their units during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Bergdahl’s case is uncommon because he allegedly did so while on the battlefield. Most have escaped while in the United States, escaping prosecution in Canada, parts of Europe or other relatively friendly locations.
Bergdahl’s case has been controversial, with questions over
whether the Obama administration handled the prisoner swap legally. Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security, also provoked criticism when she said after Bergdahl’s recovery that he had served “with honor and distinction.” She later acknowledged the remark was controversial, and said she was referring to the soldier’s decision to enlist in the first place.
“That, in and of itself, is a very honorable thing,” she said.
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