Bergdahl charged with desertion, faces life in prison

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the captive for whom President Barack Obama traded five Taliban operatives, faces misconduct charges that carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.

At a press conference today, U.S. Army Forces Command announced investigators plan to present evidence against Bergdahl at an upcoming Article 32 hearing, which is similar to a civilian grand jury. The Army has charged Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Both charges carry penalties of dishonorable discharge, rank reduction, and forfeiture of pay. The crime of misbehavior before the enemy is punishable by life in prison.

Almost as soon as Obama announced the prisoner swap at an emotional Rose Garden ceremony last summer with Bergdahl’s parents, public anger surfaced toward the soldier and the deal that secured his freedom. In 2009, Bergdahl, who was said to have been disillusioned with the United States’ mission in Afghanistan, wandered away from his post and into the Afghan countryside in the middle of the night. Soldiers from his unit described dangerous missions to attempt to free him, in which they say as many as six servicemen may have died.

Bergdahl spent five years in captivity, while his parents, Bob and Jani Bergdahl, worked tirelessly for his release. Bob Bergdahl learned the local language and grew a long beard to more readily identify with his son’s captors when communicating with them. The Bergdahls are from Hailey, Idaho, where they homeschooled their children and are members of an Orthodox Presbyterian church. Although the Bergdahls celebrated their son’s release, it made it harder for other Americans held abroad, especially those who were killed by ISIS before they could be freed. The family of Kayla Mueller, a 26-year-old aid worker who died earlier this year in ISIS captivity, said it became harder to negotiate her release after the Bergdahl trade, when ISIS leaders’ demands grew.

“That was pretty hard to take,” Carl Mueller, Kayla’s father, said in an interview with the Today show.

Meanwhile, at congressional hearings into the legality of the prisoner swap, legislators and experts questioned the president’s wisdom. Michael Waltz, a national security expert, summed up the detainees’ value to the Taliban by calling them “essentially their top five draft picks.” Weber likened the 5-to-1 trade to a bad arms deal: “We got one conventional weapon; they got five nuclear weapons.”