Coming Home: Bowe Bergdahl vs the United States

This programme contains some strong language.

What do I love in my life?

Well, I love my family...

..my mom Jani, my father Bob...

..my sister... You know?

I miss them, I love them,

and, uh...

..I pray to God to see them again.

Every day I want to go home.

The pain in my heart to see my family again doesn't get any smaller.

Release me, please, I'm begging you.

Bring me home, please.

Bring me home.

Please.

Bring me home.

So, on Saturday we were meeting some very dear friends at the park...

-Right.

-..and that's when we got the telephone call.

I'm trying not to cry so that you can understand what I'm saying.

So, we answer it, and he said, "Bob?"

I believe his exact words were, "Bob, Jani, we have him."

I'm sorry...

-That's OK.

-That was the only day I've been able to really...

Who was that who called?

-Who...?

-The President.

This morning, I called Bob and Jani Bergdahl and told them that,

after nearly five years in captivity, their son Bowe is coming home.

Bob and Jani,

today families across America share in the joy that I know you feel.

As a parent, I can't imagine the hardship that you guys have gone through.

As President, I know that I speak for all Americans when I say we cannot

wait for the moment when you are reunited and...

..your son Bowe is back in your arms.

Bowe Bergdahl was America's only POW in its long war in Afghanistan.

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has supported Bowe.

He has had a wonderful team everywhere.

I'd like to say to Bowe right now,

who is having trouble speaking English...

HE SPEAKS ARABIC

..I'm your father, Bowe.

To the people of Afghanistan, the same.

Bergdahl, then a private, walked off his military outpost in Paktika Province,

Afghanistan, in June 2009.

He was held by the Taliban for five years before being freed in a

controversial prisoner swap with five Taliban held at Guantanamo.

Following his release in 2014,

Bergdahl became a target for extraordinary claims

by some sections of the US media.

New documents, obtained by Fox News,

show that he declared himself a warrior for Islam,

even taking part in AK-47 target

practice with his captors and playing soccer with them.

Six young people, great people, were killed looking for him.

He's a traitor, a no-good traitor.

A dirty, rotten traitor.

Somebody said the other day, "Well, he had some psychological problems, you know..."

You know, in the old days, bing-bong...

With Bergdahl, who is a traitor, it was treason.

You shoot him. He gets shot.

Brought home by one President and called a traitor by the next,

Bowe Bergdahl was charged with desertion and endangering the lives

of his fellow soldiers.

He has now become one of the most vilified men

in a deeply divided America.

But what is the truth behind all the allegations against him?

And where did they come from?

And what really happened to him during his time in captivity?

I'm Sean Langan, a film-maker and journalist.

Back in 2008, I filmed these sequences in Afghanistan about the Taliban.

I've got a feeling we're close, that we're being watched.

VOICEOVER: A few months later,

I crossed the border and was kidnapped in the tribal areas of Pakistan by

the Haqqani Network, close allies of the Taliban.

They're surrounding us.

They're the same group that captured Bowe Bergdahl.

I was held for four months, locked in a dark cell,

interrogated and put through mock executions.

So I understood what Bowe meant when he later said,

"Every second in captivity feels like an eternity."

Six weeks after Bowe's release, I headed to the small town of Hailey, Idaho,

Bowe's hometown.

By the time I got there,

allegations that Bowe was not only a deserter but a traitor

and a collaborator, too, were swirling around.

But for Hailey on July 4th,

Bowe's release was still a cause for celebration.

Happy birthday, America!

I think, for our town, it's just...

..one of our own is coming home, so that's what important.

He's just a hometown boy that we would love to be home...

-Yeah.

-..with his family.

I wanted to do a documentary, really, about coming home,

but it's sensitive when it's someone like Bowe.

He's... He's one of ours. The end.

We just wanted him back.

And the rest of it isn't really our business.

No.

-What's your name?

-Sean.

-Sean what?

-Langan.

But...

I think I know who you are.

Did you make a documentary about...

..the group that Bowe Bergdahl was with?

I was kidnapped by the same group.

You were kidnapped by the same group.

-Oh, my gosh!

-Oh, my goodness!

The reason why I wanted to make a film about an American POW coming home

was because, as a former hostage,

I knew coming home was often harder to endure than captivity itself.

For four months, I was holding on whilst I was in captivity.

And I knew I was in a fight and

I had to batten down my emotions,

because I wanted to get home to see my kids.

And I'd kept two little photos, hidden from the Taliban, of my children,

and then I get out...

12 hours later,

I'm being strip-searched by Scotland Yard police...

..taking DNA swabs, taking all of my belongings,

and they took away my photos of the children that I'd kept hidden from the

Taliban, and then they stuck me in an interview room.

Four months locked in a dark room.

I had to then spend my first day of freedom in an even

smaller cell, having been strip-searched and been interrogated.

And I get it. No problem at all with that.

But when you've been holding on, and you come back,

and you think you're safe, and you let go...

You know, an incredibly vulnerable situation.

RAPID GUNFIRE

Clear to fire.

All the guns have fired.

Shoot again.

One more.

It was May 2009, the eighth year of America's war in Afghanistan,

when Bowe Bergdahl was sent to a remote outpost near the Pakistan border.

These images of him at his base were filmed days before he disappeared.

He'd been in Afghanistan for only six weeks.

In the middle of the night on June 30, 2009,

Bergdahl deserted his comrades, walking off into the mountains,

taking with him nothing more than a camera, a knife, a compass,

his journal, and a small selection of poems.

He left his weapon behind.

-What's your name?

-My name is Bowe Bergdahl.

-Where are you from?

-I'm from Idaho.

Hailey, Idaho, in the USA.

-What's the date today?

-It's July the 14th of 2009.

Within two weeks, the Haqqani Network released a proof-of-life video,

and demanded a ransom.

Fast forward five years,

and while Hailey, Idaho, was celebrating Bowe's release,

for some in America, the mood was turning hostile.

And Fox News weren't happy about Obama's trading Bowe for the five Taliban prisoners

held in Guantanamo.

Secondly, in releasing five of the most deadly terrorists that we had

in Guantanamo.

Do you believe the President has endangered the country?

I think there's a distinct possibility that these five will,

in fact, go back into the battle.

And when you have people this highly motivated...

That seemed to me fair comment.

Tough questioning over a controversial deal.

But in other Fox News pieces,

Bowe Bergdahl was himself becoming a target, too.

And for someone held hostage for so long, the tone was harsh.

We lost six Americans looking for what is a deserter.

Not only was he a deserter...

Looks to me like a deserter or a traitor or both.

But they also say that he might have been collaborating with the enemy.

Confined to his Army base in Texas,

Bergdahl had no chance of giving his side of the story,

and there was little sign of balance when Fox News' then-senior

correspondent Megyn Kelly met some of Bergdahl's former platoon.

We are joined now by six members of Bowe Bergdahl's platoon.

Guys, thank you all so much for being here.

Raise your hand if you think he deserted.

Wow.

Raise your hand if you have some question about whether he deserted.

I'm not sure about Fox News' claim to be fair.

What do you make of this latest reporting by James Rosen that he had

converted to Islam, that he fraternised openly with his captors,

and declared himself a warrior for Islam, at least by August of 2012?

That one interview set the news agenda on this story.

The media trial of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was now truly underway.

Before he went off to join the Army,

Bowe had worked in Zaney's Cafe in his hometown of Hailey.

Sue, the owner, had run the support campaign while Bowe was in captivity.

Those ribbons have been up for five years,

and I know mine will stay up until Bowe is safely returned to Hailey.

It's what we do in a small town for our own people.

In the six weeks following Bowe's release,

the town had been on the receiving end of hate mail and death threats.

And then, during the time that the threats were the worst,

I actually left town.

-So you received threats yourself?

-Yes.

They walked in. They came in here.

-People...

-Face to face.

-People from this town, from Hailey?

-I hadn't recognised any of them.

On his Army base in Texas,

Bowe was getting psychological support and beginning intensive debriefing.

..in San Antonio Military Medical Center.

During his stay here, Sergeant Bergdahl will participate

in reintegration, a process...

But less than two months after his release,

the US Army announced an investigation into his disappearance.

It would be led by a senior figure in the military, Major General Dahl.

The Army has named a General officer to lead its investigation

into the case of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.

Major General Kenneth Dahl will lead the probe.

General Dahl's mission will be to ascertain facts about the Sergeant's

disappearance and capture back in June of 2009,

from an outpost in Afghanistan.

More than a year after Bowe's release, I returned to Hailey.

I'd been trying to talk to Bowe,

but his lawyers didn't want him talking to anyone,

as Bowe himself had chosen not to meet his own family.

Bowe's parents, Bob and Jani,

had kept out of the media spotlight since his release,

and only reluctantly agreed to meet me because I was a former hostage.

They live a few miles outside of Hailey in a remote valley.

This is where Bowe grew up, and where he was home-schooled.

I'm now really nervous.

I'm about to meet a mother, who I know has been suffering beyond belief,

and I'm about to ask her questions,

and I know how fragile she is.

And she hasn't done an interview

for the five years he was in captivity.

So it's a big deal for her, this.

And I know I'm going to open up...

..a whole lot of things that she's been bottling up, emotions.

It's a big responsibility.

This is Bowe.

So dusty. This is Bowe.

Yeah, he was a big baby.

Yeah.

This is a fishing trip.

Bowe has always been an excellent fisherman, and an excellent shot.

Bob taught him how to shoot when he was probably two years old.

Well, this is all...

This is all things that people have given us for Bowe.

POW flag that...

That's the missing-in-action one, isn't it?

Yes. That was signed.

All of these boxes are full of cards and newspapers and things for Bowe.

I need to go through them and try to get rid of some things, but...

Yeah.

We have a lot of distrust of journalists

because of what they continue to do to our family.

Again, for no good reason that I know of.

They have so vilified,

I would even say demonised...

-Yeah.

-..my family.

For what reason?

Politics?

Who is the one that gave the "go" sign for the father and mother

to show up in the Rose Garden and make that announcement yesterday?

And meanwhile, he makes, in his Arabic-speaking message to his son,

he basically praises Allah at the end.

A nice little touch.

He says he was growing his beard because his son was

in captivity. Well, your son's out now.

So, if you really no longer want to look like a member of the Taliban,

you don't have to look like a member of the Taliban.

Are you out of razors?

It was polemics against Bob, like that one,

that Jani considers so unfair and unbalanced.

I am a devout Christian, my husband is a devout Christian,

our children were raised that way.

And I'm an American, and I feel that, as an American,

we are innocent until proven guilty.

You know for a fact that all countries aren't like that.

-No.

-And to take an American soldier and say that he's guilty before he's

been judged or tried...

Well, he's been judged and tried by the political...

-Yeah.

-You know, now it's the American public.

It's just not fair.

That's what soldiers fight for,

and he should have been given the chance to be innocent

until proven guilty.

And again,

I don't know that I should be talking about any of this publicly,

because it's so much bigger than this little Podunk Idaho family.

You've been going through private turmoil in the most public way.

Yeah.

Jani and I both, we're watching each other.

I think we, you know, in a slow-motion way, over five years,

I'm sure we've had...

..several emotional breakdowns.

Slow-motion emotional breakdowns.

And then you recover, so they don't seem like an emotional breakdown,

but you've actually had a mild one.

Um...

Yeah, we just can't...

You know it's not over, so you can't...

You've just got to hold...hold on.

I think we've gotten pretty good at it.

-You've had lots of practice, Bob.

-We have.

Two years after Bowe had been captured, and with no release in sight,

Bob took it into his own hands to get his son back.

I am the father of captured US soldier Bowe Robert Bergdahl.

These are my thoughts.

I can remain silent no longer.

You released a video and I understand, in that video,

you were trying to talk to them in their own language.

Very poorly, yeah.

But in a manner that would appeal to them.

I personally appeal to General Kayani and General Pashas.

Our family is counting on your professional integrity and honour to secure

the safe return of our son.

After Osama bin Laden was killed, you know, we were afraid,

well, several times we were afraid they would take it out on Bowe.

-Yeah.

-And you thought you would talk right to them.

As-Salaam-Alaikum.

I had to assume a worst-case scenario,

that our government would fail to recover Bowe,

and it would be left...

..to us.

And...

..yeah, that's when I started growing my beard out.

I wanted to look as masculine and as prehistoric as I possibly could.

Scary.

I immediately started making a long-term plan to travel to the region

and...um...

..set up shop...

..and become immersed in the culture as much as possible...

..and get him back. That was my motto.

"If you don't get him back, I will."

He had heard that they will trade a relative quite often.

So I know he was planning on a trade.

You were prepared to walk over mountains,

surrounded by Taliban and Al-Qaeda...?

To see his son again.

In 2013, Bob left on his rescue mission.

He got as far as Qatar before the US authorities found out and put a stop

on his passport.

I'm so proud of my husband.

He did everything that he could think of...

Yeah.

..to bring our son home alive.

And he did an excellent job, because he's home alive.

It's not just Bob who is being attacked as a Taliban sympathiser.

It was been suggested that Bowe himself had converted to Islam.

And even worse, in captivity, had collaborated with the enemy.

A highly contentious intelligence dossier was central to this incendiary

news piece on Fox News.

According to secret documents obtained by Fox News,

Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl,

toward the end of his five years of captivity among the Haqqani Network,

was said to have converted to Islam.

During your son's captivity,

the US authorities were coming to you and saying...

They came to you saying, "We heard he escaped,

"but we've heard intelligence reports or rumours that your son has

"converted, that he is collaborating, that he has joined the mujahedeen."

What was your feeling when you read those?

I was...

..saying, "Attaboy."

Because that's how you escape.

You have to earn...

You never doubted your son?

No. No.

Did you ever think that, perhaps, he has converted?

What did he have to lose?

I mean, after years in captivity,

and after...

..trying to escape a dozen or so times, or more.

And you know what? Many hostages convert...

..to save their lives.

I was captured for four months, and they asked me, my captors...

...asked me whether I'd like to convert.

I've never spoken about this, I don't think.

The Taliban commander came in, read out the shura's findings,

the court hearings. Like Bowe, I was on trial.

And he read out the hearing and said I was hereby found innocent

of all charges.

The commander then paused and said,

but the shura had decided to kill me anyway to send a message to journalists

not to try the same thing.

So just as I thought I was freed, he laid that on me.

And then he laughed and said, "But don't worry, Siraj Haqqani and myself overruled,

"so you're free to go."

Then he turned to my translator and fixer, my good friend,

who suffered in captivity with me, worse than I did,

because he didn't have that Western naive belief that it's hard

to chop a man's head off...

..and he turned to him and said the shura has found him guilty, but

they were willing to let him go.

And we thought it was a trick.

So to save his life...

..I converted.

And I don't like talking about it, because...

I held out for four months.

I wasn't going to fucking convert...

..to those hypocrites...

..whose main god is the dollar.

I don't want to renounce my beliefs.

I haven't spoken about that for five years.

And I'm only doing so now because...

..if it does come out that Bowe did convert in captivity...

..to save himself from being tortured, or after he was tortured...

Unless you've been in that situation, you can't judge that.

Before leaving Hailey, on this, my second trip,

I wanted to find out more about Bowe, about what had really shaped him.

Bowe had left his parents when he was 17.

He was going through a difficult patch,

and a former teacher of his in Hailey, Sherry Horton, put him up.

I heard on the radio, "American soldier captured."

And I was like, "Shit, it's Bowe." And I was like...

-Just knew.

-You just knew?

-I just knew.

Bowe's response to stressful situations,

even when he had to just think through it, through a thing,

was to go into the mountains for a day and just sit on a rock

overlooking... I mean, it's gorgeous here.

-It is gorgeous.

-Looking and just kind of sitting, meditating.

Before joining the Army, when Bowe was 20,

he went off to join the US Coast Guard.

But in less than one month he was discharged

for being psychologically unfit.

He said there was some...

He didn't agree with some of the philosophies.

And keep in mind he was still, at this point,

I think he was still only 20.

-Yeah.

-I don't think he'd turned 21, even, at this point.

And, you know, still a 20-year-old idealist who knows everything.

-Yeah.

-And... You know?

And from what he said to me was things...

It just didn't work.

They would tell him to do things and if he didn't agree with them he kind

of argued with them about, "Why am I having to do it?"

He was a big questioner on, "Why do we do this?"

And I remember having a conversation when he told me he was joining the

Army, and I was like, you know,

"You understand that what you didn't like about the Coast Guard

"is going to be more so with the Army?"

And by that time, he thought he had matured enough and figured out

and understood the process a little bit more that he could handle it.

And he had changed considerably from then to, you know,

from Coast Guard to Army.

There had been some change, but he was still, you know, he's still Bowe.

He's still kind of strong-headed.

Bowe is a questioner. He is going to ask, "Why?"

He is going to want to know, "What's the point of doing this?"

So, it could come across as being a little bit unstable because you're not 100%,

"Yeah, you said, 'Go run up that hill with a gun.'

"Let's go do that."

You know, he's going to be, "What's on top of the hill?"

When Bowe walked off his base in 2009,

he inadvertently stepped into a political minefield.

America's war in Afghanistan was becoming increasingly unpopular,

and President Obama wanted to bring it to an end.

Tonight, I can announce that, over the next year,

another 34,000 American troops will come home from Afghanistan.

This drawdown will continue and, by the end of next year,

our war in Afghanistan will be over.

But his policy was strongly opposed by some in the Republican Party and

in the Pentagon.

We're committed to winding down the war in Afghanistan,

and we are committed to closing Gitmo.

But we also made an ironclad commitment to bring

our prisoners of war home.

That's who we are as Americans.

So when President Obama welcomed Bob and Jani to the White House,

and used the occasion to underline his intention

to close Guantanamo Bay

and end the war in Afghanistan, it caused outrage amongst his critics.

Bowe was now in the spotlight.

THUNDER RUMBLES

Nine months after his release came the bad news for Bergdahl.

The US Army Forces Command has thoroughly reviewed the Army's

investigation and formally charge Sergeant Bergdahl

with desertion with intent to shirk important or hazardous duty

and misbehaviour before the enemy

by endangering the safety of a command, unit or place.

One Fox News pundit had been leading the rest of the media pack

on the Bergdahl story.

-OK.

-He was former US military intelligence officer Tony Shaffer.

With leaks and intel briefings from his sources within the Pentagon,

he was both eloquent and convincing.

I think it was a political decision based on trying to clear people out

of Gitmo, Guantanamo Bay,

rather than trying to do what was best for the nation.

What can you say you are aware of from your sources,

and you are safe going on the record and saying,

that you think he was guilty of?

My reading of the tea leaves, based on the facts I know...

..he walked off base with a purpose.

I hope you're not just reading tea leaves, Tony.

-You're saying to me as your former DIA...

-I'm saying... I'm putting

back my operative hat on, my assessment hat.

He walked off base with a purpose.

He wanted to do something.

That something was

within his own mind.

I'm not sure if anybody really understands, except Bowe Bergdahl,

what he was going to do off-post,

but it was clear that he left post with an intention and a plan.

There has to be a fundamental, factual basis

for the Article 99 charge. There has to be.

The Army, in this case, in something this high-profile,

would not arbitrarily charge someone with Article 99,

which essentially is a form of charging someone

with cooperating with the enemy, it's collaboration.

-That's what it is.

-That's what it is. Misbehaviour before the enemy,

essentially you are giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

One layer lower than actually defecting over to them.

Tony Shaffer was wrong about that.

The Army has never charged Bergdahl was cooperating with the enemy.

The Article 99 charge refers to endangering fellow soldiers.

He was using a false definition to justify allegations.

You are making comments that Bowe walked off-base with the intention

-of meeting the Taliban.

-That's my information that I have.

But what did Tony Shaffer think

about this contentious

and disturbing report on Fox News,

that Bergdahl had converted to Islam

and gone over to the enemy?

Repeated here by Megyn Kelly.

What do you make of this latest reporting by James Rosen that he had

converted to Islam, that he fraternised openly with his captors,

and declared himself a warrior for Islam, at least by August of 2012?

Where did that come from...? There was even that talk that he'd helped make IEDs.

-Look, I...

-I don't think the Taliban need a young American to teach them

-how to make...

-No, no, they have whole factories for that.

-See what I mean? Where did that come from?

-That's an excellent question, and the honest...

Let me be... I've never talked to Megyn Kelly about this,

I've never talked to her producers about this.

The honest answer is - on the record, off the record -

I have no idea where all those rumours came from.

VOICEOVER: In fact, the source for these damaging allegations

was the terrorists themselves.

The leaked intelligence dossier

reported by Fox News itself says that the source

is a member of the Haqqani Network.

A new contact, as it says, who's reliability has not yet been tested.

Within the context of Fox News, the Fox News constellation,

they have a lot of military guys

who have had some little bit of titbits here and there.

I think I'd like to believe my sources are better than theirs.

I think mine might have been correct more than theirs.

You know, at least for my sources,

I talked to the guys who were in the room who were actually running the

intelligence assets, so I know for a fact certain collection was

conducted, I know certain information was obtained.

The question now becomes how much of that is declassified

or used in some forms.

Is there another element to this?

That it's not just about Bowe Bergdahl.

He's become a political football...

Exactly. It's all political, everything's political.

And the target is the President.

I don't necessarily think it's the President.

I think it's the policy. At least, that's my perspective.

I'm a think-tank guy. My guidance is, for my leadership,

you need to protect the policy

or the failings of the policy, that's it.

Among Tony Shaffer's circle of ex-colleagues

in military intelligence is Lieutenant General Mike Flynn.

He'd been a director of the conservative think-tank

Shaffer worked for.

Mike Flynn was a close adviser to Donald Trump during the election

campaign, and became the new President's

first National Security adviser.

He'd been in charge of intelligence operations in Afghanistan in 2009,

when Bergdahl went missing.

For the first 24 to 72 hours, I mean, we were in crisis operations,

and we were... I was personally diverting every single capability,

human intelligence-wise,

to signals intelligence to unmanned aerial vehicles

to space-based systems.

I mean, we really turned on to find this soldier.

Obviously, what he found out was that these people that

he wanted to go and meet,

when he decided he was going to leave that base,

they turned out to be not such nice people.

So you believe, sir, that he did walk off the base

with the intention of meeting the Taliban?

Absolutely.

-Absolutely.

-Cos that's different to just walking off-base,

-even deserting...

-Yeah.

I think he walked off that base with the intention of deserting his unit

to meet somebody out on the battlefield

from the other...from the previous operations

that they were involved in,

and for what reason, I don't know.

Whatever they discover and whatever investigations they can find,

whatever they find, for Mike Flynn, I know what this kid did.

He walked off of his camp when he shouldn't have,

and he deserted his team.

Something that came up right at the beginning -

the guys on the base,

they were listening in on their radios to Taliban radio.

-Yep.

-And they intercepted a call,

and at the time they deciphered it as, or they translated it as -

"We've got an American soldier here with a camera

"trying to find someone who speaks English.

"He wants to talk to the Taliban."

Yes. I got that report.

So, what you just said, I saw that report.

That was later partially discredited.

But maybe it was a mistranslation, or...

-Do you feel...?

-Well, whatever the translation was, I remember that.

I remember that particular one, so, if it was mistranslated,

which I don't think it was...

What I was trying to match was,

I was trying to match that kind of information with what we were being

told by his unit and, then, when these guys said,

"Hey, we found a US soldier, here's what he's got,"

it just made a lot a sense that, wow, this guy deserted.

During his captivity, I know the US military were getting reports

that Bowe had converted, that he was working with the enemy...

-Yeah. All kinds of stuff.

-Did you believe those reports?

I didn't believe any of it.

I really didn't. The enemy is going to lie.

They're going to... You know, they're going to deceive you all the time.

And they're smart about it. Those guys are very good about it.

I did hear someone say

the Haqqanis are better at this stuff than we are.

They are incredibly good at it.

I mean, you know,

I've seen where we've run after ghosts

because of somebody, you know,

somebody taking their cellphone and making a call knowing that we were

listening and saying something that they knew to be, you know,

part of their sort of code system,

just to cause us to divert resources.

So, even though Mike Flynn was quickly convinced

Bergdahl had deserted,

he knew that some of the most serious allegations against Bergdahl

were deliberate enemy disinformation.

But other damaging and highly contentious allegations came

from within the US military itself.

Six soldiers, they were killed after it was known

-Bergdahl was in Pakistan.

-Yeah.

-Does that...?

They were on operations that were for the purpose

of trying to find that soldier.

What's the date today?

It's July 14th of 2009.

But at what point did you know that Bowe Bergdahl was in Pakistan?

Because it was within days,

if not a week or two, that the Haqqanis had him in Pakistan.

Sure, yeah. And so, in hindsight, we knew that.

We know that.

And I'm not sure if it was days or weeks, or even a week,

but I think, in hindsight, we know that now.

At the time...

..we did not know that.

We knew that they were trying to get him across the border.

I was wondering whether Flynn would acknowledge that a lot of the flak

directed at Bergdahl was, in fact, political,

that the real target was President Obama.

A lot of this has become a political angle because, later on,

the White House were also wrapping up the war,

and bringing back Bowe seemed to be kind of,

they were making it political...

Yeah, they did. They absolutely made this political.

This was another, you know, "We're finishing the problem."

You know, "We've... We're pulling out, and bringing Bowe Bergdahl home

"is another page that we turn in the closure of this never-ending war."

Well, the tragedy of getting into it is, you know,

shows the complexity of getting out of it.

And you can't just give a big speech and call it a day.

-Right.

-It doesn't work like that. Warfare doesn't work like that.

But not all senior soldiers involved in the Bergdahl affair agreed with

General Mike Flynn.

-..so help me God.

-I do.

-Please be seated.

One of them is Lieutenant Colonel Jason Amerine,

who had led the special operation to negotiate Bowe's release.

He'd been privy to all the intel.

In early 2013, my office was asked to help get Sergeant Bergdahl home.

I asked him for his expert assessment

on the most serious allegations in the media -

that Bowe had intended to go over to the enemy,

and why those making the allegations seemed so certain they were right.

Let's start with certainty.

-Yeah.

-Erm...

I do not believe

he went off to join the Taliban and then for some reason

they changed their mind and made him a prisoner.

I don't believe it.

I saw indicators that that wasn't the case,

but I can't say with certainty that didn't happen.

There's been a year and a half of allegations on the media.

They seem to...

..echo the intel reports coming out at the time.

Intel reports are intel reports.

If I'm out on the street and

I have some intel source that, you know, I'm probably paying money to,

and I say to that source, "Hey, so I hear that Bergdahl's a traitor."

You know, "Do you have any information on that?"

Hey, he's gone to get me a tonne of information on it.

That's a shoddy form of intelligence gathering.

I mean, I would hear...

..so many second-hand accounts of his acts of treason, you know,

and...

..so many of them were seriously discounted.

If Bergdahl was out there training the Taliban in how to conduct an

ambush, there would be a video of it,

because that would be better propaganda than, you know,

the actual operational impact of an ambush.

-Yeah.

-There are things like that that I would hear the stories

and I would say, "OK, well, where is the evidence?"

And I wouldn't see the evidence.

It was known he was in Pakistan

before all those soldiers were killed looking for him

-in Afghanistan.

-Yeah, but, I mean, where it gets difficult is...

I have no doubt that there were young soldiers,

weeks and weeks after his capture, that really did believe that

they might find Bergdahl somewhere in southern Afghanistan.

But the command knew he was in Pakistan.

Well, but, that doesn't... That doesn't help the families of a loved one.

-OK.

-If my son, you know,

if Private Jason out there died looking for Bergdahl,

and that's what all the other privates are saying he died doing,

and then Bergdahl doesn't go to jail, I mean,

you're going to have horrified people that simply

never understood the big picture of what was going on -

if we even understand the big picture.

It was clear that Lieutenant Colonel Amerine had himself seen no credible

intelligence that Bergdahl had actually intended to go over to the

Taliban, nor had in fact done so.

So, what was the source of those grave allegations?

David Sedney had been the senior Department of Defense officer in

Afghanistan at the time,

and had total access to all classified intelligence.

Very shortly, through...I would call the military grapevine,

there began to be reports,

and this would be things coming from sergeants and privates and stuff,

that he had left with the intention of trying to negotiate with

the Taliban. So we heard those rumours through the grapevine

inside the US military, but I never saw any evidence it was true, and

I never saw any evidence that anybody took any action

based on those kind of rumours and innuendo.

-Rumint.

-Well, rumint...

This is rumour intelligence.

Rumoured intelligence, but it's also people who are sincere,

people who believe they saw somebody, who could have been an American,

almost anywhere in Afghanistan.

These aren't just rumours coming in from Afghan sources.

Your own people are telling you that Bowe walked off-base

with the intention of meeting the Taliban.

It was all based upon supposition,

and that supposition all came, actually, from a very small

group of people, and those were the ones who served with him.

My own belief is that a certain percentage of the so-called rumours

that you talked about are things that people have just made up

because they became so convinced of the fragments

of what they'd heard that they constructed a narrative

that became real in their own minds.

And I've talked to these people.

These are people who are captains and colonels, who believe -

in the US military, or were at the time -

who believed the kind of things you said.

They believed it cos other people in their social structure,

other people in the US Army told them,

and they are accustomed to believing

and trusting what their comrades say.

It's the claim that six soldiers from Bergdahl's battalion lost their

lives searching for him that's amongst the most damaging

of all the allegations. At least two soldiers searching for Bowe

immediately after he deserted were seriously wounded.

But the six soldiers named by candidate Trump

were all killed between August 18th and September 6th, 2009 -

at least seven weeks after Bowe went missing.

Army investigations into each death concluded that none were on missions

whose purpose was to find Bergdahl.

They died sometime after the Pentagon

had ended the intense search-and-rescue mission for Bowe Bergdahl,

and when intelligence was saying

he'd already been moved into Pakistan.

-What's your name?

-My name is Bowe Bergdahl.

At what point did you know Private Bergdahl was not only missing,

but in fact had been captured?

As the week went by,

it did become clear that he had been...

He was in the possession of...groups

that were at least affiliated with the Haqqani group in Pakistan,

and we knew, from past experience, that anyone who they captured,

they would move to their headquarters in Pakistan.

Within, I would say, a matter of weeks,

it was clear that he was in Pakistan.

What's the day today?

It's July 14th of 2009.

Once Private Bergdahl was taken,

the Haqqanis communicated a request for an exchange,

plus a monetary ransom.

The overwhelming probability, then, at that point,

was that he was there, and

under their control, and in Pakistan.

Rumours that I mentioned, feelings inside the military,

has been used politically by people in the US political system

to try and attack the President, so it's become involved...

Bowe's case become a political football, you're saying?

He's become a political... His case has become a political football for

some people in a way that I personally think is disgusting.

We have a guy... Six young people, great people,

were killed looking for him.

A dirty, rotten traitor.

Donald Trump repeated the discounted claim about the six soldiers

time after time on the campaign trail.

Six young, beautiful people were killed trying to find him, right?

Six people were killed looking for him, OK?

Six people were killed. Young, unbelievable...

I watched the parents on television.

On September 18th, 2015,

six months after being charged with desertion

and endangering the lives of his fellow soldiers,

Sergeant Bergdahl was finally due at a pre-trial hearing in Texas.

If he's convicted, he could face a life sentence.

That is the latest from Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.

Casey Stegall, Fox 66 news.

-OK. Finished everything, we're all good.

-OK.

-How are you, Casey?

-Hi. Good. How are you?

-I've got the camera

on you today! Hang on, you had the camera on me yesterday!

I know.

I don't know if Fox will allow this.

-Really?

-Yeah.

The hearing's going on downstairs.

I just got my first-ever sight of Bowe.

It was quite strange to see him sitting there...

..in his dress blue uniform, head bowed, sitting next to his lawyer.

And it's in a small room, no cameras allowed.

Which is why all the cameras

are here behind me.

We will, of course, continue to keep you updated.

From Fort Sam Houston, I'm Amanda Weber.

For the first time since his release,

journalists, and through them the American public,

were beginning to hear Bowe Bergdahl's side of the story.

According to Major General Dahl,

who led the investigation into Bergdahl's disappearance,

Bowe's explanation for leaving his outpost

was that he intended to walk to another base several miles away

to make a complaint to senior officers

about the leadership issues in his own unit.

Major General Kenneth Dahl says Bergdahl left the operating post

he was stationed at

to try to get to a forward operating base 31km away.

Dahl said Bergdahl wanted to cause a search-and-rescue operation so

he could get a face-to-face with the general,

because he wanted to air grievances he had with his unit leadership.

The Major General who conducted the Army's two-month investigation into

Bergdahl's actions was asked if he thought Bergdahl should go to jail.

Dahl said he thinks jail time would be inappropriate in this case.

General Kenneth Dahl replied

that a jail sentence would be inappropriate.

Live at Fort Sam Houston, KSAT 12 News.

The defence case today, I thought was a blockbuster.

I thought that, you know,

they had the Major General who did this exhaustive investigation,

who says

he shouldn't go to jail, who says he is an idealistic, naive, misguided,

odd young man.

That then is, um, superseded...

I mean, even overdone with the next guy,

who is this former SERE instructor.

He weeps on the stand as he recalls the suffering

and the honour of Bergdahl while in captivity.

That guy was Terrence Russell, from the DoD team debriefing Bergdahl.

He told the hushed courtroom that

Bowe was repeatedly badly beaten with cables,

tortured, and left in his own excrement.

Bowe, he testified, had escaped on at least two occasions,

once lasting eight days,

and he was then held in a seven-foot metal cage for three years.

The torture he endured, according to Russell,

was the worst suffered by any POW since the war in Vietnam.

I've just had to come out for a cigarette because...

..it's mind-blowing.

I've just been listening to the testimony of a hostage specialist

at the Department of Defense.

A hostage specialist who's debriefed more than 150 prisoners of war.

And he ended his testimony in tears, saying he'd never seen...

This hard-core expert had to wipe tears from his eyes,

and his voice cracked with emotion.

You could have heard a pin drop

in the hearing room and in the viewing room.

I would say the last two days were a game-changer.

Erm...

His side had never been out there, and although he didn't testify,

I think we in the media at least, and hopefully our viewers eventually,

will have a sense of what the real story is.

And I don't think the real story was out there until

48 hours ago.

We've heard so many allegations on the media.

Not just Fox, but...

What we heard in there today from the military experts who

investigated him was something completely different,

-and it was a little bit shocking, wasn't it?

-Oh, clearly.

I... I just felt like I had not heard the story until now.

I think that we have not heard the story until now.

And I think probably Bergdahl's story hasn't been told.

-Maybe you're going to tell it.

-I hope to.

-Yeah, yeah.

You know the next question I'm asking you?

-Go for it.

-You're a journalist...

-Uh-huh.

-Who do you work for?

-I'm working in this case with Fox News Channel.

But back at Fox News,

Tony Shaffer was as passionate and polemical as ever.

The testimony hadn't shifted his view at all.

Do you buy that defence?

He was just simply wanting to go out there and report discipline problems

-inside of his unit.

-I think I buy space alien abduction

before I buy that. I mean, come on, let's take this seriously.

Also, I've heard a thing about torture.

"Oh, I was tortured." Gee, I think if you walk outside the wire,

present yourself to the enemy, they capture you...

I think you kind of created your own circumstance

for your own bad actions.

So I don't buy it at all, not remotely.

Unsurprisingly, Mike Flynn wasn't buying it either.

Major General Dahl said he believed Bowe Bergdahl when he said he walked

off-base to try and walk to another base to make a complaint.

Yeah, and if Kenny Dahl, Major General Dahl, who I know,

was sitting right here where you're sitting, I would say,

"Kenny, that's bullshit. You really believe that?"

Hello, Bob. Can you hear me, guys?

-Yes.

-Well, I just wanted to call you.

The hearing ended.

And I just met Bowe.

It looked like a good day for Bowe.

A likely end to the unfolding judicial process.

But it would be up to the presiding officer to decide whether to accept

the general's recommendations of no jail time,

and that this case should not now go to a full court martial.

I guess this is a good day, isn't it?

This is a good day.

Ever since the first day he was released -

we've had good days ever since then, no matter what has happened,

because it was an unprecedented miracle

that he is out of that alive.

For us to know that he was tortured the way he was...

I think we thought that was a possibility.

So, one of our contacts

assured us that Bowe was being well taken care of,

according to sharia law, etc.

So, for us to find this out was shattering.

-Oh, I see.

-Shattering. And I think, you know,

it's always niggled at the back of our mind that we could be lied to,

and that could be a possibility and yet, you can't really go there...

-No.

-..because if you go there, all is lost.

Was that the first time in the hearing

that it's really been laid out how...?

Because I've never heard that phrase, "the worst case of prisoner abuse since Vietnam".

No. We had not heard that either before.

Erm...

I could tell... I think I told you that before,

in the Taliban's video of him sitting in the pick-up truck

when they took the hood off,

you could tell that he had not been treated perfectly.

Apparently, according to the specialists, the military experts,

before releasing him, before the handover, they fattened him up,

-as it were.

-Oh, did they?

-Yeah. Took him out of the cage and...

I had not heard that.

I hope that gave him hope,

but I know he probably had hope before.

He probably didn't even know until he got in the helicopter

that it was actually going to work this time.

We feel

very blessed.

Our son is still alive.

Other parents, you know, didn't have that blessing.

And from the first day, just the fact that he was alive,

we had to live with hope all those years.

That's really all we have.

And trust in God.

A month after the hearing,

there finally came some great news for Bowe and his family.

The presiding officer recommended no further action against him.

We've got Bergdahl,

and yesterday I heard he probably won't even serve any time,

and 30 years ago, he would have been shot.

And people are tired of it.

I wanted to hear first-hand from Terrence Russell -

the expert with the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency,

who debriefed Sergeant Bergdahl on his return home.

His team were able to trace a lot of the allegations on the US media

back to Haqqani disinformation.

During the debriefing,

talking to some of the intelligence debriefers about this

and the information and the huge disparity between

what had been reported while he was in captivity

to what he was relating to us during the debriefing,

they were absolutely amazed at the level of disinformation that the

Taliban and the Haqqanis were spreading regarding Bowe Bergdahl.

They didn't have any concept of just how widespread this disinformation

was that they had been spreading about Bergdahl in captivity.

So, what the reality was for Bowe Bergdahl was quite different

than what the Taliban had been telling

news sources and had been leaking and getting into

the intelligence channels, much different than what they had been

telling Bowe Bergdahl's mother and father, when Bob Bergdahl

was in contact with them.

They had said they were treating him well.

Correct, right.

And in fact, the conditions in captivity were horrible.

It was anything but that.

Scared I won't be able to go home.

It is very unnerving to be prisoner.

You were saying in the hearing that actually many of the allegations

in the media against Bowe,

you were able to trace back to Taliban, Haqqani misinformation

-and propaganda.

-Right. And that's exactly what it was.

You know, they would keep everybody, you know...

There's a reason the enemy uses disinformation and misinformation,

and in this case they did that,

and it did not certainly serve Bowe Bergdahl well.

People believe what they hear sometimes.

And then, when you come to find out what the facts are of the case,

that it was anything but,

here you have a young soldier with no training doing his best

to fight the enemy in a way that nobody else has to fight the enemy.

You couldn't ask for a better soldier in captivity

than what Bowe Bergdahl did.

He continued to fight the enemy, he continued to resist.

He escaped within weeks of his initial capture.

When they recaptured him and brought him back,

they spread-eagled and secured him to a metal bedframe.

While he was shackled to this metal bedframe

in a spread-eagled position,

they took a plastic pipe,

I imagine it was like a plumbing pipe...

-Yeah.

-..and they started beating his feet and has legs repeatedly

with this plastic pipe.

Later, they moved to using a copper cable.

The idea was to just beat him

and injure his legs and his feet

so that she could not walk away again.

A year after his initial escape, he escapes a second time.

Trying everything that he can do to get away from his captors.

Now, when he got recaptured, I ask him,

you know, "If they tortured you the first time,

"what did they do to you the second time?"

And they had him take his shirt off and they saw that he was nothing but

skin over bones. He had been out evading for eight and a half days,

living on grass and water.

He was physically at his limit.

Bowe Bergdahl said that they knew that if they started beating him and

torturing him that they were likely to kill him.

And that's not what they wanted to do.

They wanted him as a mechanism to gain some benefit.

So, they didn't abuse him.

But what they did do

was almost as bad -

putting him into a cage for three and a half years

and just shoving him in a dark corner and not dealing with him,

and barely keeping him alive over that long period of time.

Being held in a cage with a hood over your head

for not just weeks at a time, months at a time,

but for three and a half years,

he was held in solitary confinement.

He was held in isolation,

and that isolation is psychologically just devastating.

What do you say to those who now say Bowe Bergdahl should be punished

for walking off his base?

Well, I think that he does...

You know, we live by the code of conduct and, for military members,

this code of conduct is important,

and that code of conduct says you are responsible for your actions.

I believe that Bowe Bergdahl should be held responsible for his actions

relative to leaving that post, but, you know,

it's my opinion that to say that he deserted with no intention of

coming back flies in the face of what the facts are.

Yes, he left his post and, you know,

the reasons for that have been reported,

but it was not to go over to the enemy.

It's just absolutely crazy that anybody would consider him

to be a traitor when, in fact,

he was, in captivity, an honourable soldier.

Terrence Russell was right.

In captivity, Bowe had resisted the enemy like a one-man army.

So, why did he walk off-base?

I went back to Idaho to talk to his family.

Sorry, you're not cooking dinner, are you?

I am.

-Corn bread.

-I've lost count of how many meals you've made me.

-Well, I love to cook.

-You know what I did hear?

-What?

-That the first food Bowe asked for was peanut butter

-when he got released.

-Yeah, yeah.

If you'd asked anybody in the family, they would have known that.

I wanted to ask Bob what he knew about Bowe's psychological problems.

In the pre-trial hearing, Bowe's mental health issues

had been a critical issue.

In his journals at the time, there was a two-page...

where he is writing "zip or Velcro, zip or Velcro, zip or Velcro,"

over two pages.

It looks to me like...

On the edge of a nervous breakdown.

-I don't know what that is.

-I think that's absolutely correct.

-OK.

-I think anybody who is entertaining ideas

like running 18 miles to a FOB is...has broken down.

What did come up in the hearing was that your son,

after 23, 29 days in the US Coast Guard, had been rejected as,

and the term was... They used the phrase "psychologically unfit".

No-one was saying... You know, that's just a medical report.

-Right.

-But he was found there, in the base, the US Coast Guard,

sort of...hands on his head, some blood on his hands,

and so he was asked to leave on medical reasons.

Knowing what you knew from what happened in the US Coast Guard,

were you not really concerned?

No, we didn't know that. We learned about his short stint

in the Coast Guard when his effects came home and we saw this...

..order dismissing him from the Cost Guard.

Oh, my God.

It was becoming more and more clear to me that Bowe should never have

been allowed to join the US Army

because of the psychological problems for which

the US Coast Guard had thrown him out.

But when he joined up in 2008, knowing about his problems,

the US Army issued him a medical waiver.

Despite his psychological issues,

Bowe had resisted the enemy in captivity.

His father, on the other hand,

reached out to the Taliban to save his son.

And many said he went too far.

But at least now Bob had shaved off his beard.

I grew it in solidarity for my son's captivity

in this prehistoric land of Afghanistan,

where male, um, patriarchal culture

is so dominant.

Let me say something directly to the Taliban...

HE SPEAKS PASHTO

To be a good presuppositional Christian,

I had to know the worldview of other people.

I only speak a little Pashto, but I'm trying.

HE CONTINUES IN PASHTO

But you're now getting drawn in, and sympathetic,

and now we know your son endured the worst torture any prisoner has faced

since Vietnam.

-Yeah.

-These are people you were...

Yeah, that hurts. And had I travelled there...

..um, and discovered those facts...

Yeah, the...

These were people you were empathising with.

Well, yeah. But...

Putting your son spread-eagled. I don't want to be...

-Empathising with...

-I'll just give you one element -

they were beating your son with copper cables

and locking him in a cage.

Yeah. Erm...

If I had to discover that personally on my own, as his father,

having been granted - quote unquote - "safe passage",

it would probably have been completely revoked at that point.

I do not live here, I live in Afghanistan.

My cellphone is set on Afghan time.

My weather is Afghan weather.

I might be standing here, but I am living vicariously through my son.

And appealing to the Taliban to save your son...

Whatever. I don't care.

You've reached out and you've lost the American public.

I don't care. I don't care.

If America hates me for getting my son back, well, then, fuck them!

Yeah.

If you don't understand that it's a father's capacity as a father

to do everything he can to get his flesh and blood back...

Yeah.

..then you're condemning Abraham from getting Lot back.

You're condemning biblical theology.

Blood is thicker than water.

-Right.

-Jesus will go to the other end to save the lost sheep.

He'll leave the ninety-nine to get the hundredth.

As Christmas 2015 approached, Bob and Jani were still waiting

for news about whether their son Bowe would face a court martial.

Despite all their prayers for his safe return,

their nightmare hadn't ended.

So, that's 2008. And is that the last time you all saw him?

Um... Yep, basically. Yep.

-That's the last time I saw him.

-Yeah.

So, even tonight, as we sit here,

the report's now gone to the General to decide whether this goes

to court martial. So, you're still in the weeds with this.

We're still in limbo. It's been over six and a half years now,

and we're still in limbo as to...everything.

One way or another. But our son is alive, and that's a miracle.

I mean, Bob, I think, you know, I know Jani's worried.

But when I think about it,

that your son was captured and tortured by the enemy,

and now being held on a base and put through mental torture here

in America, really,

it would be almost inhuman of you not to be angry and bitter.

Yeah, Jani's the most forgiving person...

..I've ever known and most people have ever known.

But the Pentagon was under intense pressure to prosecute Bergdahl,

and not just from the media.

Senator John McCain, an ex-Vietnam POW,

had threatened the Army that, if they didn't prosecute,

the Senate would investigate.

On December the 14th, 2015, General Robert Abrams,

the Commander of US Army Forces Command,

announced that Bowe would now face a full court martial.

Another piece of breaking news related to Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl,

that we're hearing he will now face a general court martial.

Now, this is significant news, Brooke,

in light of the fact that there was a recommendation that pretty much

said, "You know what, I've reviewed this, I've evaluated this,

"from the underlying Army investigator, and as a result of it,

"we should really end this here."

Well, the General, of course, went against that recommendation,

and as a result of that, because of the full-blown trial that he's

now exposed to, he could face a life sentence.

I'd been trying to get an interview with Bowe since he was released,

and now, finally, I'd got the call.

Bowe was ready to talk.

We agreed to meet in a remote farmhouse

near his base in San Antonio, Texas.

But I was now dreading coming face to face with my fellow hostage,

because it would mean coming face to face with my own past.

Some experiences are so traumatic they never quite fade into memory,

but live forevermore in the present tense.

And as I walked into that toolshed,

it was like stepping back into my own cell.

Now, listen, let me say hello first.

Is that light OK, or is it too strong in your face?

-No, it's all right. Don't worry about it.

-Yeah.

-Are you nervous?

-Oh, yeah, certainly. No, I am nervous.

I'm always nervous around people, though.

I'm not sure people are really...

And maybe no-one ever can begin to fathom what it's like to be held

captive for five years.

There are no rules to surviving.

When you're in a survival mode, there really are no rules.

Just to,

you know...

When it comes to drinking urine, when it comes to, you know,

eating food that has been thrown in the dirt

that, you know, is basically mixed with faeces,

there's no rules to surviving.

Every day, basically, you know, at some point in time I tell myself,

"You're not making it out of this. You're a dead man." And that...

Did you become used to being beaten?

I mean, you were beaten with copper cables.

Yeah, in the very beginning, that was the most frequent times for it.

Erm...

But then, after my escape, because my health had gotten so bad...

I mean, that was another reason why I was able to escape,

was because my health was going bad.

You know, it was getting so bad

that I was literally looking at myself,

you know, looking at my joints, looking at my ribs and going...

.."I'm just going to die here from sickness...

.."or, you know, I can die escaping."

I'm almost... I can't believe you kept trying to escape.

That kind of courage...

The first escape, the second escape... What kept driving you on?

Because that's why you ended up enduring the worst case

of prisoner abuse, that you kept escaping and

they kept punishing you.

Yeah, it's...

You know, it's a combination of so many things, I think.

And...

And one of them...

One of the things that drove me was...

..you know, you get to that point of being executed.

Like, you know, they showed me movies, or videos, home videos,

of people being executed...

-Yeah.

-And, you know, it's extremely graphic,

how a guy with his hands tied behind his back and his feet tied,

you know, tied up, and their hands and feet are pulled up

-so the guy's arching...

-Yeah.

And then they grab his hair, they grab his chin,

and then they start sawing away at his neck,

and they don't use sharp blades, and they don't go very fast.

-No. I've seen it.

-Yeah.

-And they saw away.

-Yeah.

My greatest fear, I think, was having my throat cut in the dark.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't think...

I don't think there's anyone out there who would find that

a very nice reality to find themselves in,

the fact that the guys who are on the other side of the door...

..they don't just cut people's throats,

they delight in cutting people's throats, because it's culturally

and religiously...

..acceptable and delightful and justified.

It wasn't

being scared of dying, it was forcing myself to embrace

that I was a dead man.

That it didn't matter what direction I went in, if I stayed or if I went,

or if I went,

I was dead. And that fatalistic...

And there's... That was where,

you know, the moments of taking a deep breath and just saying,

"Let it go," in the sense of life,

you know?

Late 2010 saw Bowe's longest escape, for eight days,

confirmed by both US military intelligence and the Taliban.

I'm sitting there in the corner with a room full of guys with AK-47s and