Bergdahl sentence approved
Private Bowe Bergdahl’s sentence was approved by General Robert Abrams, the chief of U.S. Army Forces Command, sparing him a prison term, according to Stars & Stripes;
Gen. Robert Abrams, the chief of U.S. Army Forces Command, upheld the sentence handed down by the judge, Army Col. Jeffery R. Nance, in November at that conclusion of a weeklong sentencing hearing in Bergdahl’s court-martial, FORSCOM spokesman John Boyce said Tuesday in a statement. Abrams was the convening authority in the court-martial, the senior official who oversees the case and must review and approve the judge’s findings.
Nance sentenced Bergdahl to forfeit $10,000 in pay, a drop in rank from sergeant to E-1 private and a dishonorable discharge, which stops him from receiving any medical or other benefits offered to most veterans. The judge could have sentenced him to as much as life in prison. Prosecutors had requested Bergdahl serve 14 years confinement.
Bergdahl was charged with “misbehavior before the enemy by endangering the safety of a command, unit or place” and “desertion with intent to shirk important or hazardous duty” after he was released from captivity by the Haqqani network of terrorists in exchange for five dangerous detainees. Bergdahl explained that he set off across the desert to warn some commander of his unit’s toxic leadership.
Category: Army News
To hell with this guy.
I think that karma will catch up with him eventually and someone will shank him on a dark corner or alley.
One can only hope.
Or he can go all Robin Williams/Kate Spade.
/what? too soon??
I don’t care how he goes. I don’t care where he goes. All I want is this traitorous turd gone.
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see this jerk get an anchor spot on CNN or MSNBC.
Meh, let them drive their own ratings even lower!
I was not privy to the info presented in his trial. The accounts I heard (3-6th hand) do not support this outcome…. Prison should have been included at a minimum.
Bergdahl’s defense attorneys put up his interview with BG Dahl on the “Bergdahl Docket” website. My reading of that led me to agree with you–Bergdahl deserved serious prison time. His disloyal letter home (quoted in Rolling Stone) intensified that view. They convinced me that he worked himself up into a snit because he got Article 15’d (for not wearing armor outside the wire), and thought this would ruin his chances at qualifying for Special Forces.
General Abrams had no power to increase the sentence, only to affirm it as-was, or else reduce or suspend it.
“HOW TO MAKE DESERTION PART OF YOUR LEGACY”
by Barack Obama.
I think that “chili bowl” in the picture is punishment enough. Those terrorists are real bastards with scissors.
What about his backpay?
The big question remains: Does he get his 6 years of back pay (at the E-5 rank he was awarded while AWOL, no less?) Last I heard that was still up in the air.
Unless forfeiture of all pay and allowances was specified, then yes, that prick gets it.
I think that GEN Abrams completing his part of the sentence process (not sure why it took almost 7 months)is required before that next administrative action is considered.
My limited understanding of the law is that he would not normally be entitled to back pay, as the time he was a guest of the Haquani/Taliban is not considered “good time” due to his desertion.
The analogous peacetime situation would be a soldier going AWOL on Monday 1 June then getting arrested for DUI on 4 June and sentenced to 45 days in jail. The soldier’s pay stops on 1 June due to the AWOL and does not start again until he returns to military control at the end of his 45 day sentence (around 9 July in this example). In this instance, the soldiers is not a deserter as I assume the military knew he was under the control of law enforcement.
Most military attorneys I have talked to say Bergdahl’s situation is similar in that he lost entitlement to all pay and allowances during the period of his admitted desertion; however, there are a few who have argued that the sentence only is for one count of desertion which leaves open the door for Bergdahls lawyers to argue that the guilty plea only covers the initial day of desertion and not the whole period (as the Judge did not specify that a time period under which he considered Bergdahl “deserted”.
They should be lengthening his neck with a rope.
At least this only cost us five terrorists.
Are you sure it was only 5? That previous White House occupant quite possibly did a dirty deal ala the Iran travesty. Cocksucker.
*and a few US lives in the search. that’s a very expensive trade I wouldn’t make.
You’re absolutely right, Jim. The American lives lost or injured looking for this turd make it a far more costly trade than I alluded to.
Those are the true victims in this. Good people died because of what this asshole did.
Them and the families of those killed or wounded on their missions to find this fuck are the victims of his and the Judge that didn’t stick his ass in Ft Leavenworth for at least ten years…
I had a couple of friends go AWOL right after we got to our duty Station from AIT. Ft Wainwright.
They got their asses beaten by a couple of Sergeants and some others too.
Rule .303 should be applied as soon as possible.
.303, .308, whatever’s handy.
Rule 14.5 if you pissed off Fat Boy Kim
Agree. But since that’s not likely to happen anytime soon, maybe he’ll visit another pot farm, get stoned, and then step in front of a bus.
For anyone who didn’t catch the reference, it’s from Breaker Morant and refers to the .303 British cartridge:
I would be interested in hearing what the SR Chief Seal that lost a knee and a dog during the search for this traitor has to say about the sentence.
I imagine it would be colorful …
Yes, a Rorschach painting in blood red, using a “hush puppy” for the color applicator, in true Seal payback tradition….the late hero “Hair Missle” would likely agree, but would have preferred to bite this asshole on the throat, puncturing both carotid arteries and crushing the larynx as a bonus. Oh….sorry, was that too graphic….or not graphic enough?
Can he get food stamps?
Does his AD time count towards SS?
Unemployable so SSDI is available?
Hope he gets caught with a firearm before he swallows it. Make him live a long miserable life.
Ditto. Long and full of guilt. Bet he applies for VA benefits for the PTSD. He’ll claim the PTSD was the result of what took place prior to his desertion and prior to his being declared a deserter and therefore took place during honorable service. I’ve seen it happen when working for the VA. These scumbags have a basket of tricks.
His daddy is a wanna be goat fucker so maybe the little sperm will turn on him for making him all stressed out.
Don’t think so. Bergdahl received a DD and was convicted of desertion. Per Federal law, if I recall correctly both a DD and conviction of desertion result in a statutory bar on receiving VA benefits.
No matter where he goes and what he does, he knows that he’s infamous for what he’s done as well as the families and friends of those KIA and WIA are always somewhere out there. He’ll always have to look over his shoulder and I hope he spends the rest of his life in total misery.
API….totally in agreement with you. Hope where ever he goes to live, LEA will distribute to all neighbors within five miles the famous Goataphile warning. Several years of hard time labor would have worked off some of the frustration he will always endure.
Bowe Bergdahl is not totally useless, human organs fetch a LOT of money on the Black Market!
Not everything is up for grabs. No balls, no heart, missing backbone, sexual organs have a proclivity toward goat love, however; pull his teeth and make him a lifetime swallower. His legs will only work one way, and that is in reverse. Both intestines are likely full of shit already. I’d guess his johnson is the size of a pea. Sphincter muscle is already used up. He won’t bring much on the open market.
He’s probably hung like a five year rat terrier. About $6 for the entire carcass. Of course Mattel co. could use him as a model for the new line of Ken and Harvey inflatable dolls for pervs.
Fuck the piece of shit coward. He should be doing life without.
Just reading this fuckstick’s name pisses me off.
Throw him back over the wire.
You can look back over the years of posts here about Bergdahl and you will find one consistent thing. Jonn would have none of the traitor talk until Bergdahl was freed. I always respected Jonn for that. His view, as I recall, was that we could not know what was what–and none of it much mattered–while an American was being held by our enemy.
But now that all is said and done?
Fuck. This. Guy. HARD.
The biggest crime in all of this was the wretched shit the judge and reviewing authority handed down. There is no excuse for this. At what point is Big Army going to grow some fucking BALLS and start holding people accountable for their fucked up actions. This was a punishment of sorts, but it was sure as hell no deterrent. An example should have been made of this cockwrinkle, and nothing serves to do that better than life in prison or the death penalty when applied.
Could you imagine Patton or MacArthur signing off on a reduction in rank and DD for an admitted deserter?
We’ve got to the point where it’s just easier (and probably cheaper) to kick bad eggs out of the service than it is to hold them accountable.
They’re probably rolling over in their graves, along with George Washington.
Could you imagine Patton or MacArthur signing off on a reduction in rank and DD for an admitted deserter?
They wouldn’t have had much choice, not under our current (post-1948) laws.
In their own day they would have been free to excoriate the panel that handed down the lenient sentence…but the general can’t increase the sentence, only affirm it as-is or reduce it. In one of my courses, I read a “skin letter” from the Pacific theater where the commander does just that…he’s infuriated that the panel gave hard time (decades of hard labor) to a rapist, instead of the death penalty. But since the UCMJ came out in 1948 he can’t do even that much.
Sometime earlier than that…I don’t know when it stopped…commanders had the power to reverse “not guilty” verdicts and tell the panel to do it over again…but I don’t think that rule survived into WWII and I know it doesn’t survive now.
So, there’s no blame on the commander for signing off on the sentence. He had no better option.
“commanders had the power to reverse “not guilty” verdicts and tell the panel to do it over again”
I thought they still could. However, my UCMJ experience didn’t need to go further than an LOC. 🙂
They can’t.
Interestingly, the Library of Congress website has a copy of “Military Justice During the War”–a letter from TJAG to the Secretary of War in 1919–in which General Crowder answers complaints about MJ in WWI. That particular power is mentioned in the letter (page 9), so I know it lasted that long. (But off the top of my head I do not know exactly when it was abolished…only that it was never part of the UCMJ.)
Historically, Military Justice ended to “soften” during and after big wars, because so many citizens who’d’ve never joined the interwar Armed Forces volunteered (or were needed) for war service–and were appalled at what their commanders could do to them. For example, Congress abolished flogging as a military punishment during the Civil War to attract more recruits; and the UCMJ was partly a response to the complaints of returning WWII veterans.
Flogging was abolished by Congress on 5 August 1861.
Someone forgot to tell George …
[from Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell]
Orders: 25 lashes and a shaved head for a man who was caught stealing fruit,…and he served up the same punishment for equally trivial crimes on other occasions.
Custer later equivocated and said, “Since my order — head-shaving and lashes — not flogging, discipline has been restored….”
I thought Custer also flogged the four troopers who deserted when he whent AWOL to see Libby — but he had them shot instead.
I hadn’t heard of that – thank you!
Someone forgot to tell George…
Or George forgot to tell someone…
He should have been given the Eddie Slovik treatment.
I’m still trying to understand why this POS didn’t get any time. Truly, he should be executed, but I would have settled for a life sentence.
I guess this is what passes for Justice in America today. More’s the pity …
You’ll have to ask the military judge who gave Bergdahl the sentence about that. I certainly don’t understand why he didn’t get hard time, give the eventual financial and human cost of his desertion.
And the arrogant fuck intends on appealing this. Dickwad.
I want the fucker to appeal it, but in a perfect world he’d run the risk of shitting away the proverbial slap on the wrist he got and potentially spend the rest of his days staring out at the Kansas prairie from behind bars.
Like I said, in a perfect world.
US Army commander approves Bowe Bergdahl sentence, no prison time
By: Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press 16 hours ago
18.7K
Army Sgt. Robert Bowdrie “Bowe” Bergdahl, 31 of Hailey, Idaho, center, is escorted into the Fort Bragg military courthouse for his sentencing hearing on Oct. 30, 2017, in Fort Bragg, N.C. (Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A senior U.S. military commander is endorsing the decision to spare Army Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl prison time for abandoning his post in Afghanistan, endangering military comrades who participated in the lengthy search for him.
Army Gen. Robert Abrams, head of U.S. Army Forces Command, approved the court-martial sentencing handed down last November. Bergdahl was reduced in rank from sergeant to private and ordered to forfeit $1,000 a month in pay for 10 months. The judge also gave him a dishonorable discharge.
Army to determine if Bergdahl is owed back pay for his time in captivity
Army to determine if Bergdahl is owed back pay for his time in captivity
When Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl came home in 2014, he was potentially entitled to hundreds of thousands of dollars in pay that accumulated over five years while he was in Taliban captivity in Afghanistan.
By: Meghann Myers
The fine and rank reduction were effective two weeks after the judge’s sentence was delivered. The case is now referred to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, which automatically reviews any punitive discharges.
Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban and held for five years.
Army Sgt. Robert Bowdrie Army Sgt. Robert Bowdrie “Bowe” Bergdahl is transported from the Fort Bragg military courthouse after the prosecution and defense rested during his sentencing proceedings on Nov. 2, 2017, in Fort Bragg, N.C. (Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)
I got the above from online Marine Corp Times last night and tried posting it a few times before I realized that it would be posted today. I guess I jumped the gun last night.
So I guess this felonious, deserter, goat-ass-pimple prick will get/keep a POW Medal for to keep along side is dishonorable discharge to display for all to see?
I don’t think he should. The reason for his capture was desertion.
– Person must be engaged in actions against an enemy
– The person’s conduct while in captivity must have been honorable.
Neither of these seem to apply.
The Dishonorable discharge means he is entitled to zero medals, zero claims of service, can’t even say he’s a veteran. He never served in the eye’s of America. It’s as it should be.
He should have received the same punishment as Privater Eddie Slovik (a US Army soldier) who was executed for desertion during World War II…
Regarding his back pay, I’m guessing that while he was in an MIA or POW status his pay was direct deposited into his bank account. Good luck finding that money even if they wanted to.
More obama legacy America has to deal with.
Maybe now his fleabag hippie wannabe goat-molester father might disown him because he’s no longer getting any more money or publicity from his cockroach turd offspring?
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At least he and Manning can share the distinction of being dishonorable, meaning neither of these “men” can claim to be a Veteran, something denied to dishonorably discharged Soldiers. It’s a small victory but better than nothing.
Until the next democrat gets elected and decides to pardon them. I wouldn’t put it past that domestic enemy political party anymore.
Curious. You got me to read Title 38.
According to Title 38 I am a Officially Veteran of the Persian Gulf War even though I never deployed to the Persian Gulf. I am not veteran of any other war even though I could of swore I went somewhere a few times and vaguely recall being shot at, mortared, rocketed, and ambushed with IEDs by people who I believed were enemies of the US.
Funny that.
But yeah Bergdoll and Ms Manning: Not veterans. I wonder if they know that since Manning is running for office on his vet creds?
Should say never deployed to the Persian Gulf before 1997. After that plenty o’ times.