{"id":64967,"date":"2016-03-24T09:31:39","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T13:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=64967"},"modified":"2016-03-24T09:34:20","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T13:34:20","slug":"washington-post-bergdahl-deserves-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=64967","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post: Bergdahl deserves mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bergdahl<\/a><\/p>\n

The Washington Post editorial board <\/a>steps out of their lane once again to beg for mercy for Bowe Bergdahl. They call him Sergeant Bergdahl, but, I don’t. I was a Sergeant – I studied for weeks before I sat in front of the senior noncommissioned officers in my battalion, sweating buckets and stuttering like a moron. I spent weeks at the Primary NCO Course, spit shining the “autobahn” strip in the middle of our hallway between endless classes and practical application of leadership skills. Bergdahl has done none of that, so he’s not really a sergeant. Just like he’s not airborne qualified but he gets to wear a maroon beret when he’s at his assigned unit. Bergdahl has a lot to be thankful for that he has been given, things that he never had to earn like the rest of us. Now the Washington Post decides that he needs “mercy”. No, he didn’t earn that either.<\/p>\n

I used up any mercy I had for Bergdahl while he was being held. I, along with hundreds of others, was fully aware of the circumstances of his capture. None of us thought that he deserved to be beheaded for his transgressions – we kept our mouths shut, because we knew that once he no longer had value for his Haqqani captors, he would be killed. So we called for his return without revealing what we knew about him – for five years. I think that’s pretty damn merciful. In the meantime, his team mates who knew the circumstances much better than me, went out for months looking for his stank-ass. Putting their lives on the line for a deserter. That seems pretty merciful.<\/p>\n

What began as a test of Mr. Obama\u2019s ability to deliver an American from captivity has thus mutated into a test of American military justice\u2019s ability to remain impartial amid pressure from political overlords and a deeply polarized political debate. We agree with those who say that Mr. Bergdahl\u2019s conduct in leaving his unit was wrong, that it put lives at risk and that, despite his psychological issues, he should be accountable. At the same time, the Army may have contributed to this debacle by enlisting a soldier it shouldn\u2019t have. And even without formal accountability, he has already suffered horribly for his actions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The debate about Bergdahl isn’t “political”. It’s about right and wrong. There is no mental condition in which wandering around Indian country unarmed should seem normal to anyone. I think that Bergdahl was more surprised than anyone that the Haqqani found him before his squad found him. I have no doubt that he suffered for his mistake, but suffering isn’t punishment. He suffered the consequences of his own bad choices, but he hasn’t been punished by the people who were harmed most by his departure from his unit – namely the Army and his squad.<\/p>\n

General Dahl, the investigating officer in the case urged that Bergdahl avoid imprisonment, but his investigation was based solely on Bergdahl’s own words, since the Haqqani wasn’t around to verify Bergdahl’s accounts of his escape attempts, starvation and torture.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Washington Post blames the Army for enlisting Bergdahl in the first place – the evil Bush war machine enlisted a retard. Hardly. he made it through Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training – someone who went through all that isn’t completely retarded.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post editorial board steps out of their lane once again to beg for mercy … Washington Post: Bergdahl deserves mercy<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/53658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}