[IdahoMountainExoress] A military judge heard testimony Wednesday in the sentencing phase of the court-martial trial of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, with one military officer giving an account of injuries sustained while looking for the missing soldier from Hailey.The judge, Army Col. Jeffery Nance, is still considering dismissing the case against Bergdahl because of comments made by President Donald Trump when he was a candidate. Meanwhile, Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers are testifying about their unsuccessful search for him after he voluntarily walked off a remote outpost in Afghanistan in June 2009.
At the sentencing hearing in Fort Bragg, N.C., on Wednesday, Nance said he had yet to decide how he will rule on a defense motion to dismiss the case because of Trump’s campaign-trail comments about Bergdahl, 31, Reuters and the Associated Press reported, including a statement that he is "a no-good traitor who should have been executed."
Prior to Bergdahl’s mid-October guilty pleas to charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy‐the latter of which carries a potential life sentence‐Nance denied a previous motion to dismiss the case due to Trump’s comments. While Nance considers the current motion to dismiss, soldiers who engaged in a lengthy but ultimately fruitless search for Bergdahl testified about the hardships and injuries they sustained in doing so.
After Bergdahl left his post, ostensibly to report what he viewed as failures in his unit’s leadership, he was captured by the Taliban, and his battalion commander, Col. Clinton Baker, testified Wednesday that the unit jumped into action in an attempt to retrieve the soldier before he was taken to Pakistan, according to Reuters. He testified that soldiers took direct fire and encountered improvised explosive devices every day for at least the first six weeks of the search, the network reported, and that new clothes had to be flown in for soldiers whose clothes rotted off of them after 37 days.
"The only time you slept was when you couldn’t stay conscious anymore," Reuters quoted Baker as testifying. "Everybody was out looking. That was it. We were tapped out."
Reuters and the Associated Press reported that Senior Chief Petty Officer James Hatch, a former Navy SEAL, testified that he was wounded by enemy AK-47 fire that killed an Army dog in a July 2009 raid aimed at finding Bergdahl. Reuters reported that Hatch has since had 18 medical procedures to repair those injuries.
Testimony about injuries sustained in the search for Bergdahl continued Thursday, but reports did not indicate that the sentencing would include testimony about deaths possibly related to the search for Bergdahl‐yet another source of controversy in the case of a soldier who was largely portrayed as an imprisoned hero when captive and a traitor once freed in 2014.
According to retired Command Sgt. Maj. Ken Wolfe and other officers interviewed about the case for the podcast "Serial," units searching for Bergdahl were approved for missions that typically wouldn’t have been approved, putting them in greater danger than usual, and resources used in the searches short-changed other units, leading to casualties in those units. But retired Lt. Col. Paul Edgar, who took part in the initial search, said that Bergdahl was being used as a scapegoat for deaths that are an ordinary part of war.
"In society, we treat Bowe as some aberration, but his case is simply a very normal part of war," Edgar said.
Hundreds of U.S. soldiers deserted during Bergdahl’s time overseas, but his five years in Taliban captivity and subsequent release in a controversial prisoner swap for Guantanamo Bay detainees made the case unique, "Serial" producers concluded.
Although military investigator Maj. Kenneth Dahl recommended that Bergdahl not face jail time, he was charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy in March 2015, eventually pleading guilty to the charges on Oct. 16 this year. He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison and dishonorable discharge for the latter charge, if Nance decides not to dismiss the case.