Capture of U.S. soldier 'breaks our heart,' friend says

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  • letsrock
    Veteran
    • Mar 2007
    • 1595

    Capture of U.S. soldier 'breaks our heart,' friend says

    Capture of U.S. soldier 'breaks our heart,' friend says - CNN.com

    (CNN) -- A family friend of a U.S. soldier captured by the Taliban said his friends and family want Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl to "stand tall, stand firm."


    Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl shown here in a video made by his captors, members of the Taliban.

    1 of 3 "Bowe, if you see this, know that we love you and we are praying fervently for you and prayers are going up for you from all over the world," Tim Baker told CNN affiliate KTVB-TV in the soldier's hometown of Ketchum, Idaho.

    "To all of our valiant men and women, know that the American people believe in you, support you and are 100 percent behind you, and we thank God every day that you have our back."

    In a video released Sunday, apparently made by his captors, Bergdahl spoke of being "scared I won't be able to go home."

    "It breaks our heart," Baker said. "It's like having one of our own kids in this situation." Watch friend's comments about Taliban captive »

    The Bergdahl family is not speaking with media, but Baker said prayer is helping. "Prayer means that we are extremely powerful because God is not limited by where we are when we pray. He is there with Bowe, and so we know that he is protecting him and is with him, so we don't feel powerless against these people," Baker said. "We feel very empowered."

    Bergdahl, 23, was captured June 30 from Paktika province in southeastern Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense.

    The Taliban has threatened to kill Bergdahl if foreign troops continue targeting civilians in the name of search operations in Ghazni and Paktika provinces, Taliban commander Mulvi Sangeen said by telephone Friday after being contacted by CNN at an undisclosed location.

    NATO-led forces in Afghanistan and the U.S. military have repeatedly denied targeting civilians.

    In the 28-minute video, Bergdahl becomes emotional when he speaks of his family -- his parents, siblings, nieces and nephew -- and the girlfriend he hopes to marry.

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    "I have a very, very good family that I love back home in America, and I miss them every day that I'm gone," he says. "I miss them, and I'm afraid I might never see them again and that I'll never be able to tell them I love them again. I'll never be able to hug them.

    "I'm scared I won't be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner," he said. However, his captors are treating him "like a guest," he said.

    It was not clear whether some or all of Bergdahl's remarks were scripted by his captors. Watch excerpt from the video »

    The last few minutes of the video show him eating a meal.

    In a statement released Sunday through the Idaho National Guard, Bergdahl's family said, "We hope and pray for our son's safe return to his comrades and then to our family, and we appreciate all the support and expressions of sympathy shown to us by our family members, our friends and others across the nation. Thank you, and please continue to keep Bowe in your thoughts and prayers."

    Asked by his captors if he had any message for Americans, the soldier says, "To my fellow Americans who have loved ones over here, who know what it's like to miss them, you have the power to make our government bring them home. Please, please bring us home so we can be back where we belong and not over here."

    The Taliban earlier claimed responsibility for Bergdahl's kidnapping, the military said. Last week, the U.S. military distributed pamphlets in eastern Afghanistan in an effort to locate him.

    "As you can see, the American soldier is in good shape and good health, and he is being treated well based on the guidelines of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan regarding war prisoners," said a statement on Islamist Web sites accompanying the video. "Any decision regarding the American soldier will be the specialty of the high order of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, may God protect him."

    The U.S. military said it believed Bergdahl may have been moved to various locations. In the video, Bergdahl's captor makes reference to his being moved from Paktika to Khandahar, saying the move was accomplished "very easily." The claim could not be independently verified. Asked the date by his captor, Bergdahl says it is July 14.

    Two versions of the pamphlets were distributed in Afghanistan, written in the Pashto language. They were made available to CNN by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

    One shows the image of an American soldier shaking hands with a group of kids with the message, "One of our American guests is missing. Return the guest to his home. Call us at" -- and lists a phone number.

    The other shows a U.S. soldier kicking down a door, and then an outstretched hand with the superimposed image of a soldier, his head and arms drooping, and the words, "If you do not release the U.S. soldier then ... you will be hunted."

    Days after Bergdahl went missing, a senior U.S. military official said he and the Afghan soldiers were captured by low-level militants and then quickly "sold" to the clan and network led by warlord Siraj Haqqani, who is believed to be deeply involved in the action.

    The Haqqani clan operates on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border and is well known to the U.S. military.

    Bergdahl apparently left his small outpost on his own on June 30 with no apparent means of defending himself, the official said. Taliban commander Mulvi Sangeen said he visited a military post in the Yousaf Khel district in the Paktika province, got drunk and was ambushed while returning to his car.

    Sangeen said the soldier was taken to a safe place. CNN could not independently verify Sangeen's claims.

    A source with the U.S. military denied the claim that Bergdahl was drunk. "The Taliban are known for lying and what they are claiming (is) not true," the source said.


    In the video, Bergdahl says he was captured as he was lagging behind a patrol.

    Bergdahl is not a National Guardsman, according to the Idaho National Guard statement, but the organization said it was coordinating with the Department of Defense to provide public affairs duties and other assistance to the Bergdahl family. The family has requested privacy, the statement said.
  • FORD
    ROTH ARMY MODERATOR

    • Jan 2004
    • 59245

    #2
    FAUX Noise is actually calling this kid a "liar" and a "deserter"
    Eat Us And Smile

    Cenk For America 2024!!

    Justice Democrats


    "If the American people had ever known the truth about what we (the BCE) have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - Poppy Bush, 1992

    Comment

    • hideyoursheep
      ROTH ARMY ELITE
      • Jan 2007
      • 6351

      #3
      Something stinks here.

      1) How do you "lag behind" during a patrol?
      2) Why wasn't he armed during this "patrol"?
      3) Since when were you able to get drunk in the Middle East?

      Comment

      • hideyoursheep
        ROTH ARMY ELITE
        • Jan 2007
        • 6351

        #4
        Originally posted by FORD
        FAUX Noise is actually calling this kid a "liar" and a "deserter"
        Well he might be, but that doesn't mean the Taliban should be allowed to do whatever they want with him...he still belongs to us.

        Noticable difference between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda is that this kid is still alive.

        Comment

        • Va Beach VH Fan
          ROTH ARMY FOUNDER
          • Dec 2003
          • 17913

          #5
          Originally posted by hideyoursheep
          Noticable difference between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda is that this kid is still alive.
          For now...

          Tell ya what, after seeing Nick Berg's beheading a few years ago, that's gotta be a terrifying way to go...
          Eat Us And Smile - The Originals

          "I have a very belligerent enthusiasm or an enthusiastic belligerence. I’m an intellectual slut." - David Lee Roth

          "We are part of the, not just the culture, but the geography. Van Halen music goes along with like fries with the burger." - David Lee Roth

          Comment

          • sadaist
            TOASTMASTER GENERAL
            • Jul 2004
            • 11625

            #6
            Originally posted by Va Beach VH Fan
            For now...

            Tell ya what, after seeing Nick Berg's beheading a few years ago, that's gotta be a terrifying way to go...
            Yeah, and some people actually believe it was CIA operatives pretending to be Al Qaeda that beheaded that poor guy.
            “Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings.”

            Comment

            • sadaist
              TOASTMASTER GENERAL
              • Jul 2004
              • 11625

              #7
              Originally posted by FORD
              FAUX Noise is actually calling this kid a "liar" and a "deserter"
              Link?
              “Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings.”

              Comment

              • Seshmeister
                ROTH ARMY WEBMASTER

                • Oct 2003
                • 35532

                #8
                Originally posted by sadaist
                Yeah, and some people actually believe it was CIA operatives pretending to be Al Qaeda that beheaded that poor guy.
                That's what happens when you torture people, you lose trust and respect.

                Comment

                • Seshmeister
                  ROTH ARMY WEBMASTER

                  • Oct 2003
                  • 35532

                  #9
                  Originally posted by sadaist
                  Link?
                  <object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AL9P6W9vt6E&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x402061&color2=0x94 61ca"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AL9P6W9vt6E&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x402061&color2=0x94 61ca" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object>

                  Comment

                  • Seshmeister
                    ROTH ARMY WEBMASTER

                    • Oct 2003
                    • 35532

                    #10
                    He's a liar?

                    Does that mean McCain was a liar?

                    Ralph is a dickhead.

                    Comment

                    • Seshmeister
                      ROTH ARMY WEBMASTER

                      • Oct 2003
                      • 35532

                      #11
                      Daily Kos: State of the Nation

                      23 Congressional Vets Condemn Fox News Analyst Ralph Peters


                      by KingOneEye

                      Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 03:25:27 PM PDT



                      A few days ago, Fox News military analyst Ralph Peters appeared on the network to discuss PFC Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier captured by the Taliban. In the course of the interview Peters, acting as judge and jury, declared that Bergdahl was a liar, a deserter, and that "the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills," presumably by killing him.

                      Last night Peters went on Bill O'Reilly's show to explain his position. What took place was another episode of bashing Bergdahl wherein both Peters and O'Reilly branded him as "crazy." However, they both also completely ignored Peters' previous remarks regarding permitting the Taliban to execute an American soldier. (Watch here)

                      Now a truly bipartisan assembly of Congressional veterans is speaking out about this atrocious behavior. A letter from Rep. John Boccieri (D-OH) was sent to Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes. It was co-signed by 22 colleagues. It said in part:

                      "As members of Congress and veterans of the United States Armed Forces, it was with incredulity and disgust that we watched Fox News Strategic Analyst Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters (Ret.) suggest on your airwaves that Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, "abandoned his buddies, abandoned his post, and just walked off," and stated that, if this is true, 'the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.'"

                      "We demand an apology to PFC Bergdahl's family and to the thousands of soldiers who put their lives on the line for our country. As a member of the military family, Mr. Peters should measure his remarks and remember that the United States will never abandon one of its own."

                      One of the co-signers of the letter is Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) who goes even farther to call for Fox News to immediately fire Peters and O'Reilly. There is probably little chance of that, particularly with regard to O'Reilly who is Fox's cash coward. But if there are no consequences for this sort of irresponsible behavior where will it end? It could conceivably progress to the point where Fox News programs host analysts who believe that our country's only hope is for Osama Bin Laden to attack us again. Oh wait, Glenn Beck already did that.

                      It's time for Fox News to start paying a penalty for these repulsive remarks, and it's good to see members of Congress, who are also veterans, asking for some sort of redress. Frankly, I don't think an apology is enough. Fox News has been piling up atrocities with impunity and it won't stop until there is a price attached to their disgusting antics. We must make them pay that price.

                      Comment

                      • Seshmeister
                        ROTH ARMY WEBMASTER

                        • Oct 2003
                        • 35532

                        #12
                        Col Ralph Peters


                        Military career

                        Peters enlisted in the Army as a private in 1976, after attending Pennsylvania State University.[1]

                        After returning from Germany, Peters attended Officer Candidate School and received a commission in 1980.[2][3] . Subsequently, he served with 1st Battalion - 46th Infantry Regiment, then part of the 1st Armored Division,[4].

                        He spent ten years in Germany working in military intelligence. Years later, during the 2004 Killian documents controversy, Peters pointed out that in his front-line division in 1977, five years after the memos in question were allegedly written, only the general's secretary had an electric typewriter.

                        Peters later became a Foreign Area Officer, specializing in the Soviet Union. He attended the Command and General Staff College. His last assignment was to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. He retired in 1998 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

                        In other words the great couch general has never been in action or heard a shot fired.

                        Bill O'Reilly

                        Military Career



                        So let's get to the point. The striking fact of O'Reilly's past is that the Vietnam War simply never happened. In "Bill O'Reilly's Nothing But Spin Zone," the great eraser works tirelessly and he comes from a world where there is no Vietnam and no draft which is rather strange for someone who grew up in the era. Vietnam, the overwhelming event of O'Reilly's high school and college years is never mentioned in his books nor on his television show. Even in his attacks on Clinton there no mention of "Slick Willie Clinton the Draft Dodger." And the why of it is pretty simple. Bill O'Reilly at least matched Bill Clinton's Vietnam War record.

                        O'Reilly graduated from Chaminade High School in Long Island in 1967, a year in which 10,000 Americans, some younger then O'Reilly, died in Vietnam. And in these years, 1967-1968, O'Reilly would have to register for the draft and then make a decision. While America's lower economic classes were being drafted or enlisting there was a ways out for many of the despised liberal elite. It was called the college deferment followed by graduate school.

                        And Vietnam was not something that you just overlooked or forgot about. In 1967-68, American airwaves and newspapers were filled with stories of battles called Operation Cedar Falls and Junction City, of places named KheSan, Locninh, DakTo, as well as the Tet Offensive and the MyLai massacre. And there were massive demonstrations and marches in cities and on campuses including the famous Kent State photograph.

                        Yet O'Reilly, at his age and single, was high priority draftee material yet never enlisted or was drafted and his record of the Vietnam era remains blank. Today's - but not yesterday's - super patriot, entered Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York in the fall of 1967. He was active as a columnist for the student newspaper The Circle as well as a member of the football team which meant he suffered no great physical handicap which would exempt him from military service.

                        In the bloodiest days of the Vietnam war we find Bill O'Reilly and Bill Clinton as college students in England.

                        O'Reilly spent his junior year, 1969-1970 at the University of London. The previous year, 1968, Bill Clinton had entered Oxford. So in the heat of the Vietnam war and its greatest battles, we find Bill O'Reilly and Bill Clinton as college students in England. In these years, U.S. troops in Vietnam topped the half million mark and American combat deaths now totaled thirty-three thousand, a sum greater than the Korean War. And in 1969, Life magazine shocked America with portrait photos of all 242 Americans killed in Vietnam in just one single week.

                        Then, in the fall of 1970, he returned to Marist College from England, rejoined the football team and graduated in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. In that year, 1971, American deaths in Vietnam passed the forty-five thousand marker.

                        Additionally, at the time of O'Reilly's graduation, a draft extension bill was passed along with what was then known as the Mansfield Amendment which set a national policy of withdrawing troops from Vietnam 9 months after the bill's enactment (wording was later softened to the "earliest practical date"). It was the first time in modern US history that Congress had urged an end to a war in which the country was actively involved

                        Yet after graduation, and with the conscription law and the draft lottery in full force, O'Reilly would never be inducted. Instead, he was off to Florida where he took a job teaching at a high school. Two years later, in 1973, he was back in college at Boston University for a master's degree in broadcast journalism. By that time he finished at Boston U., the draft and the war were history. And neither would ever play any part in the life of one of America's most vocal defenders of patriotic ways and values.

                        Despite O'Reilly's historical amnesia, Vietnam and the draft really did happen. Two million Americans served in Vietnam with 500,000 seeing actual combat. The latest number of killed in action totaled 47,244. In addition there were 10,446 non-combat deaths while 153,329 Americans were seriously wounded, including 10,000 amputees and over 2400 American POWs/MIAs.

                        But in "The Nothing But Spin Zone" you will find not one word about Vietnam or the draft. It simply never happened in Bill O'Reilly's version of the Irish - American working class theme park.



                        Why it always these kind of scumbags that are so fucking tough when it comes to a scared kid....?

                        Comment

                        • sadaist
                          TOASTMASTER GENERAL
                          • Jul 2004
                          • 11625

                          #13
                          Thanks for the clip Sesh. I had not seen that. However, I won't do as Ford and say Fox News is calling the soldier a liar & deserter just from this one guys comments. I've never seen this guy before...maybe I have, just don't remember it and he doesn't look or sound familiar. Apparently this guy has been on several networks, not a Fox employee. But I think after these comments he won't be getting very many requests from anyone in the future.

                          "Peters has appeared on PBS, FOX News, CNN and other networks with commentary on military issues and current affairs. writes a regular opinion column for the New York Post, and has written essays and columns for USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Monthly and Army magazine."

                          Ralph Peters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
                          Last edited by sadaist; 07-23-2009, 09:11 AM.
                          “Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings.”

                          Comment

                          • sadaist
                            TOASTMASTER GENERAL
                            • Jul 2004
                            • 11625

                            #14
                            Originally posted by Seshmeister
                            He's a liar?
                            Maybe the guy did desert or is not telling the truth when he says he "fell behind" his guys. But I wouldn't be calling him that until I knew 110% for sure. You just don't do that to anyone...especially a military man who is captured.

                            Lying or not, I hope he comes home alive.
                            “Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings.”

                            Comment

                            • letsrock
                              Veteran
                              • Mar 2007
                              • 1595

                              #15
                              Something isnt right about any of it.

                              Comment

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