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Who and what are ‘Americans’ to believe about our last soldier in captivity being released?
I think I’d like to know your feedback, feelings, and thoughts on this blog post & story. We have finally have our last military personal freed. He gets a “Hero’s Welcome,” but should it really be one? Many are saying he “just walked away from his post & platoon.”
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl (courtesy of NBC)…
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HERE ARE JUST SOME HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WEB!…
“Not Everyone’s Hero: Soldiers Question Bowe Bergdahl’s Bravery”
“The 28-year-old sergeant vanished from a military base in Eastern Afghanistan with little more than a compass and a bottle of water. Considerable resources were diverted to try to find the missing man, and several of his fellow soldiers were killed trying to find him.”I was pissed off then and I am even more so now with everything going on,” former Sgt. Matt Vierkant, a member of Bergdahl’s platoon when he went missing, told CNN. “Bowe Bergdahl deserted during a time of war and his fellow Americans lost their lives searching for him.”
“Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel declined to comment on reports that the sergeant had walked away from his unit. Such matters “will be dealt with later,” Hagel said.”
“Bergdahl Begins ‘Reintegration’ at U.S. Medical Center in Germany”
THE FAMILY of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was overjoyed when President Barack Obama personally called them Saturday and gave them the news they were desperately hoping to hear: Their son, captured by the Taliban in 2009, was still alive. And he was finally coming home.“We cannot wait to wrap our arms around our only son,” Bergdahl’s parents, Bob and Jani Bergdahl, said in a statement, thanking supporters and those who helped secure his return without a single shot fired.”
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“Bergdahl disappeared when he reportedly walked away from a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan in June 2009, carrying only a compass and a bottle of water. He was the only U.S. service member ever to be held captive by enemy forces in Afghanistan.”
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@Martin_Dempsey OnTwitter
“It is our ethos that we never leave a fallen comrade. Welcome home SGT Bowe Bergdahl.”
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“The cost of years of captivity to Sgt.BoweBergdahl and his family is immeasurable,” added Secretary of State John Kerry.””Kinzinger ‘VeryDisappointed’OverTermsofBergdahl Swap
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“Bowe Bergdahl’s Hometown Hailey, Idaho, Celebrates Release”
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“In a press conference Sunday,Bergdahl’s mother and father,Jani and Bob, thanked the residents of Hailey for standing by their son.””Jani Bergdahl, teary-eyed, spoke directly to her son from the podium: “I think you may be very surprised at the number of people who have gathered you into their hearts, at home in the Valley here, all over Idaho, across the country, and around the world.”
Bob Bergdahl, who grew a long beard in solidarity with Bowe, compared his son’s return to a scuba diver coming up for air after a dive.
“Bowe has been gone so long that it’s going to be very difficult to come back,” said his father. “If he comes up too fast, it could kill him.”
Jani encouraged her son to follow all the instructions given to him by the hospital staff at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where Bergdahl is currently being treated. “Give yourself all the time you need to recover and decompress. There is no hurry. You have your life ahead of you,” his mom said.”
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See, the reason I ask if you feel Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is a ‘Hero or Deserter’ is this. My father spent 24 years in the Air Force, and when he came home from the Vietnam war, he didn’t come home to clapping and cheers or even people telling him, “Thank You” for your service to your country. No, all he got were angry hippies, war protesters yelling and screaming at him that he should never have went over there. My father did his tour of duty at the main base in Vietnam at Da Nang. He said later, when us kids got older that his base was always being bombed and attacked because it was one of the main drop off points by plane to leave troops coming to help fight the war.
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All I can say to that is, those people who did that back in the day should be very ashamed of what they did to those ‘Vietnam Soldiers’ when they came back from the war. The subject that really puts a claw in my arm is the facts of what’s been going on here at our ‘Arizona Veterans Medical Center.’ Our vets having to wait almost a year to get medical and mental health services! WTF? And when my father came home, they didn’t really have anything in place like the military does now. The soldiers coming back from war are evaluated and re-introduced back into active duty or civilian life. Why didn’t my father get that luxury when he came home from Vietnam? And what about the countless missing & Pow’s still left behind in Vietnam? What about them and their families who never got closure, or even a body to bury? What about them? Now I understand I’m not a famous or well-known person, I’m just a nobody out here asking our government for answers to these very important questions.
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Yes, I may not know a lot about our military, but I do know this, my father should have been treated like a hero when he came home from the Vietnam War! He deserved much better than what he came home to, and all the other soldiers of all our wars past. Now if you’re a history or war buff, then I have an excellent book to recommend for you. It is written by a woman who lived on the battlefield literally. Her name is “Agathe von Kampen,” and her family had to take in and let the German Soldiers bathe, feed, and house them while Hitler ruled with an iron fist! It was expected of her family to do this or they would have been killed. She grew with guns and rifles blazing, and bombs going off all around her. She even had to many times, while at school, dive into bomb shelters when the fighting was right outside. She lived it, seen it with her own eyes, and now wrote her Memoir of all it, and more abuse when she and her finally made it America.
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Her book is titled; “The Chocolate Bar” by: Author, Agathe von Kampen… http://www.amazon.com/Chocolate-Bar-Agathe-von-Kampen/dp/1624850146/
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Now that I strayed a little, my thoughts of ‘Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’ is this, even if he just took a bottle of water, a compass, and just walked away as some of his past platoon soldiers say, he still got caught and held captive for 5 years. Anyone who goes through that experience may not be a hero, but they still deserve a huge ‘Welcome Home’ don’t you think? Regardless of the surrounding how’s of this story, he was set free and he still deserves some kindness, Caring, and Support for what he went through in those 5 years. Don’t you think his family also deserves to have him back? If it comes to finding that he really deserted his platoon, then I’m sure he will be punished properly for it later. But never under-estimate the power of GOD, as him getting captured and help captive was God’s way of giving him his penance? Maybe or maybe not, but it’s how I will see this story for myself.
So how do you feel about this story? Let me know in my comment section if you’d like to add more about how we should look at this story. It’s what makes us ‘Unique’ from one another as human beings, and I always love a good debate! We all have different views on the same topic. However, I will wish Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl all the best in his recovery. My thoughts and prayers to him and all his family to be blessed that they have him home…
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God Bless All,
Author, Catherine Townsend-Lyon
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Soldiers Of World War II
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