The Bergdahl Story

A friend from high school spent 6 or 7 years in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said an older native said the only way for peace is to kill everyone over the age of 10 and start over.

 

I would have liked to have seen all 5 executed on tape and sent back in response to their plea bargain

 

Suicidal is not desertion.

 

Never how it worked with us. At all.

Maybe all POGs are really good guys.

 

So better that all that be for nothing by not trading?

Because the wealth of info pouring in from GITMO is staggering, and not trading totally brings all those others back to life.

 

Why would he need a compass?

 

There were three things I kept on me at all times in the military, per my command. Including even when in the US:

1. Watch
2. Compass
3. Knife

You can ask why about everything, but in a lot of cases, the answer is because.

 

Had a similar experience on one of my tours. We were transporting prisoners and two of them spoke English. The younger one, I would say mid 20's, made an analogy. He said roughly that they were like flies around the meal. You cant kill us all and we will continue to kill as many of you as we can.

 

Buddy of mine said the same thing. He always had a compass.

 

Keeps you from walking in circles! Sounds good to me anyway.

I ought to carry one on my hikes, my left knee is finally bad enough to where I get a slight drift when I walk.

 

I "dress on the right" and the added weight damned near keeps me walking in a very tight circle.

Take it as you will.

 

You're ignoring the words we wrote to his parents and spoke to others on his team.

That being said, your larger point of learning how he got where he was, is a valid one.

 

I can't say that I know the level of information coming out of GITMO. You'll have to excuse me for assuming you don't have the slightest idea either.

 

I think after 10 years, and the releases plus trials, we can assume very damn little.

Couple that with fact the the Corp's AT Bn, which rotated every year since 2004, has been in charge of guarding the interior, I'd agree; you don't know shit, sailor.

But I forgot. We can question the decisions and rational of the President, and possibly a member or two of the joint chiefs.

But whoa to anyone who may have an opinion about Intel.

 

Who said you couldn't hold an opinion or question things? There's a difference between holding an opinion or questioning something and stating something as though it's factual. I conceded the point that I don't know the level of information coming out of GITMO. You can hypothesize, assume, question, or whatever your heart desires but the reality is that unless you're actively involved there neither do you.

 

I would think that the landscape, especially personnel wise, has changed so much since the folks at Guantanamo were placed there that they're fairly useless from an intelligence standpoint.

My solution would involve an excavator and a dozer.

 

I can't imagine your unit was anything but an outlier. I don't know the type of unit you were in, but deployed line combat arms units are as Tenny D described. When it's our shoddy soldier vs. the bad guys, the bad guys lose.

 

You're arguing that what he did wasn't desertion? Is there a list of reasons that negate the walk away as a violation? Does it matter that it was in a combat zone where the guy was holding an MTOE slot?

 

Up until a point, or maybe John Kerry's swift boat was also an outlier as well.

 

I never said the wasn't a deserter. He may have well been.

I'm saying there are reasons beyond desertion that would cause a person to do and say as he had, and simply taking a side based on explainable bullshit is stupid.

Dude did several years in captivity. I'm not going to crucify him two days after he gets picked up by friendlies.