Michael Ames

My one friend on LibraryThing darwin.8u reminds me that his brother’s new book on Bowe Bergdahl is just out, so I read that.

Start here (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/magazine/bowe-bergdahl-afghanistan-book.html) with this good interview with author Matt Farwell in the New York Times, about Bergdahl but also how writing the book helped him process his own war and post-war experience as well as the death of his brother, veteran combat pilot CW4 Gary Marc Farwell, in a helicopter crash in Germany shortly after Bergdahl’s capture.

Bergdahl, you will recall, was the U.S. Army soldier that after a few weeks in Afghanistan left his weapon on his cot in his forward operating base, walked off his post (I can’t be the first to notice that his initials are BRB), and was quickly grabbed up by the Taliban and hustled into Pakistan for five years of brutal torture, neglect, and isolation. He was then traded for five Taliban captives in Guantanamo, and court-martialed for desertion and misbehavior in front of the enemy. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a reduction in rank to private and dishonorable discharge, but no confinement.

In my view this was a reasonably just sentence, though the Army should have taken its appointed investigator’s recommendation and just charged him with desertion and not the more serious misbehavior in front of the enemy charge. Bergdahl probably deserved his dishonorable discharge and reduction in rank, but he also deserved the awards and medals and advancement in rank that he earned in captivity. It is notable that despite his punitive discharge, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies continue to seek out Bergdahl to advise them on survival, evasion, resistance, and escape practice and theory.

The book is justly harsh on filmmaker Mark Boal and insufferable radio journalist Sarah Koenig, who took advantage of Bergdahl’s goodwill and used the story for their own purposes without regard for the consequences to be suffered by others.

The authors don’t let Bergdahl off the hook in the least, but the story is far more complicated than cable news, or the Army, would have one believe. Recommended.… (altro)