Yesterday I cycled past an entrance gate to Fort Richardson, where Bowe Bergdahl was based before deploying to Afghanistan and eventually being captured and held by the Taliban in 2009, until his recent release. It set me to thinking about one of the many interesting books I read last year, The Deserters. It was a book that focused on the lives of three deserters in WWII, and had some general information about deserters, e.g. the life of crime many of them lead in foreign cities (e.g. Paris) after they deserted, how the military hunted them down, the time they served in prison when found guilty, etc.. There were over 150,000 American and British deserters in WWII. I had no idea the number was that high. I don’t know if Bergdahl in fact deserted, which I understand technically means he was absent with out leave (AWOL) or took an unauthorized absence (AU). What I learned from the book, however, is that desertion is taken very seriously in the military, a criminal action prosecutable under the code of military justice. What’s possibly worse, it can make you persona non grata with your fellow soldiers. Although if I recall correctly some deserters in WWII, when discovered by their fellow soldiers out on patrol, were actually helped by them. My impression was that was rare.
Anyway, what rankles me about this Bergdahl case is how it’s being treated in the press and by the certain members of the Obama white house. People like Susan Rice, who jumped to claim Bergdahl served honorably, you would think would keep her mouth shut until the circumstances of his capture are made clear. Plus, I’ve heard other commentators on CNN and elsewhere claim, “We must do whatever we need to do to bring our soldiers home.” That sounds nice and honorable, but I doubt these people would have thought that way about WWII deserters of the kind described in the aforementioned book. So if Bergdahl did desert, why should he be seen any differently by us or treated any differently than WWII deserters were, i.e. as criminals? To save face for Obama?
What justice Bergdahl will meet if he is in fact found to be a deserter I don’t know, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, having traded a criminal for five bad guys hardly seems like an event worthy of a celebration in the Rose Garden.