Mr. and Mrs. Bergdahl held another press conference, Sunday, to send a messages to their son.
Mrs. Bergdahl sounded like you would expect any mother to sound like after enduring such a long ordeal – tearfully happy and thankful that her son is coming home.
Mr. B. was an entirely different matter, though – raising more questions than he answered.
“I hope your English is coming back and know that I love you, so proud of your character,” he said of the son who was not well regarded by his former comrades at all. After deserting his post, no less than six soldiers from his unit were killed trying to find him.
Seeming to confirm that Bowe indeed went AWOL, he said, “I’m proud of how much you wanted to help the Afghan people and what you were willing to do to go to that length…”
When I saw Bowe Bergdahl’s father on the news yesterday – with his Talibanesque beard speaking Arabic (supposedly so he could better relate to his son’s captors) I thought, “okay…something is wrong with this picture.”
The good news of his son’s release was tempered by the fact that Obama released five Gitmo prisoners in exchange. Later in the day, when we found out who those prisoners were- five top Taliban commanders – some of whom had committed war crimes – all of whom were deemed to be a risk to Americans – the “good” news was tempered even further.
Then more and more information came out about Bowe – who had deserted his company in the middle of the night and walked straight into the arms of the Taliban, and the whole thing really began to stink.
Obama used a Rose Garden press event to tout the surprise trade — which he won by making critical, last-minute concessions — while the parents of the freed soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, stood alongside.
At the end of brief event, the soldier’s father, Bob Bergdahl, recited the most frequent phrase in the Koran — “Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim” —which means “In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Compassionate.”
After Bergdahl finished his statement and his praise for Allah, Obama hugged him.
I found this post a few months ago and did some research…it all seems to pan out:
I WAS THERE. I’m sick of all the lies. Here is the TRUTH, from someone on the ground. We were at OP Mest, Paktika Province, Afghanistan. It was a small outpost where B Co 1-501st INF (Airbone) ran operations out of, just an Infantry platoon and ANA counterparts there. The place was an Afghan graveyard. Bergdahl had been acting a little strange, telling people he wanted to “walk the earth” and kept a little journal talking about how he was meant for better things. No one thought anything about it. He was a little “out there”. Next morning he’s gone. We search everywhere, and can’t find him. He left his weapon, his kit, and other sensitive items. He only took some water, a compass and a knife. We find some afghan kids shortly after who saw an american walking north asking about where the taliban are. We get hits on our voice intercepter that Taliban has him, and we were close. We come to realize that the kid deserted his post, snuck out of camp and sought out Taliban… to join them. We were in a defensive position at OP Mest, where your focus is to keep people out. He knew where the blind spots were to slip out and that’s what he did. It was supposed to be a 4-day mission but turned into several months of active searching. Everyone was spun up to find this guy. News outlets all over the country were putting out false information. It was hard to see, especially when we knew the truth about what happened and we lost good men trying to find him. PFC Matthew Michael Martinek, Staff Sgt. Kurt Robert Curtiss, SSG Clayton Bowen, PFC Morris Walker, SSG Michael Murphrey, 2LT Darryn Andrews, were all KIA from our unit who died looking for Bergdahl. Many others from various units were wounded or killed while actively looking for Bergdahl. Fighting Increased. IEDs and enemy ambushes increased. The Taliban knew that we were looking for him in high numbers and our movements were predictable. Because of Bergdahl, more men were out in danger, and more attacks on friendly camps and positions were conducted while we were out looking for him. His actions impacted the region more than anyone wants to admit. There is also no way to know what he told the Taliban: Our movements, locations, tactics, weak points on vehicles and other things for the enemy to exploit are just a few possibilities. The Government knows full well that he deserted. It looks bad and is a good propaganda piece for the Taliban. They refuse to acknowledge it. Hell they even promoted him to Sergeant which makes me sick. I feel for his family who only want their son/brother back. They don’t know the truth, or refuse to acknowledge it as well. What he did affected his family and his whole town back home, who don’t know the truth. Either way what matters is that good men died because of him. He has been lying on all those Taliban videos about everything since his “capture”. If he ever returns, he should be tried under the UCMJ for being a deserter and judged for what he did. Bergdahl is not a hero, he is not a soldier or an Infantryman. He failed his brothers. Now, sons and daughters are growing up without their fathers who died for him and he will have to face that truth someday.
Phoenix VA whistleblower Dr. Katherine Mitchell was on Justice with Judge Jeanine Pirro to talk about the corrupt practices at the Phoenix VA, the place where the Regime’s latest scandal blew up.
During the interview, she made an extraordinarily serious charge about the VA Office of Inspector General, which she said was slanting its reports in favor of the VA – essentially allowing them to cook the books while punishing whistle-blowers like her.
She explained that she was at the Phoenix VA working on a project to reduce the number of patient suicides, but was put on administrative leave when she tried to blow the whistle on evidence that the books were being cooked.
She told Pirro that she discovered as she was going through some charts “some really disturbing trends”, and found that the VA’s reaction to them was “lacking to say the least.” She filed an OIG complaint with some of the “most serious and life threatening issues” included in the complaint.
Pirro asked what she thought about being put on administrative leave for speaking out.
“It’s not unusual for the VA to make up things and sabotage a physicians career for bringing things forward,” Mitchell answered. “It’s not just at Phoenix VA – it’s VAs across the country.”
“Was this common knowledge that this was happening?” Pirro interjected. “Did the IG speak to you about this?”
Mitchell answered that the IG spoke to her for about two hours and she told them about it – but they were more interested in the documents she had.
Pirro, perking up, said, “you say you have direct knowledge of evidence being destroyed. Talk to us about that.”
Here, it gets a little murky because Mitchell didn’t really have time to tell the whole story – but it’s clear that she thinks the IG was helping the VA to cover up some very shady practices.
“What happened was an employee called and asked for my help,” Mitchell began. “The new appointment request or near list is something that basically every time a veteran requests a new patient appointment, it generates a computer fingerprint. This list pools all those fingerprints together, and you can tell the exact date when a patient requests an appointment – and then how long it’s been since they actually had their first appointment. The near list is run for each of the clinics.”
She continued to say that the OIG report was extremely deceptive when it talked about the waiting times on the near lists.
Pirro interjected again, “doctor – is what you’re saying is that the IG was – actually not being clear on what was going on? And was slanting it in favor of the VA?”
“Correct,” Mitchell answered. “The Phoenix downtown clinic’s near list started at 477 days and worked its way down.” She said the OIG indicated levels of wait times in the 100’s.
Pirro asked her if she thought that this scandal was worthy of a criminal investigation.
Nice Deb 