Did Bergdahl Really Cause the Death of American Soldiers When He Deserted?

Commentary by Jack (CNN Article 6/10/2014)

CNN – Some soldiers have gone so far as to say the six died while searching for Bergdahl. Others say he is indirectly to blame — after Bergdahl vanished, essentially every operation became a mission to find their lost colleague in one way or another, they say.

“I can’t really say I blame Bergdahl to the fullest extent,” former Staff Sgt. Justin Gerleve, Bergdahl’s squad leader, told CNN last week, “but if he wouldn’t have deserted us, these soldiers very well could have been in a different place at a different time, rather than the place at the time of their death.”

Staff Sgt. Clayton Patrick Bowen, killed on August 18, 2009. 2nd Lt. Darryn Deen Andrews, killed in September 2009. Staff Sgt. Kurt Robert Curtiss, killed on August 29, 2009. Pfc. Matthew Michael Martinek, killed on September 11, 2009. Staff Sgt. Michael Chance Murphrey, killed in September 2009. Pfc. Morris Lewis Walker, killed August 18, 2009.

The above soldiers died either due to IED’s or gunfire while they were operating in an area occupied by the Taliban. Anytime you put a lot of soldiers into the enemy’s backyard, people are going to die. However, in each death noted part of their mission was to search for Bergdahl, and there were other components in their mission orders as well. The search for Bergdahl was overlapping into virtually everything the soldiers were assigned to do. However, there is likely no way we’re ever going to be able to unequivocally say Bergdahl’s (alleged) desertion directly caused these deaths. Unless you have a Taliban soldier step up and say he lured these American’s into an ambush because they were searching for Bergdahl, how else can we say Bergdahl was largely responsible? I have only said these deaths were to some degree linked to Bergdahl’s actions when he disappeared from camp, as in cause and effect. make of that what you will.

CNN- continued…. “Interviews with soldiers familiar with the specific missions in which the six died suggest the charge is complicated — but not without merit given how much the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment became focused on “PR” — personnel recovery — after Bergdahl vanished from his guard post on June 30, 2009.”

“The fact of the matter is, when those soldiers were killed, they would not have been where they were at if Bergdahl had not have left,” said former Sgt. Evan Buetow, Bergdahl’s former team leader. “Bergdahl leaving changed the mission.”

“If Bergdahl hadn’t left it’s entirely plausible that they wouldn’t have had those follow-on missions or been where they were,” said the NCO, who served in the 501st.

Some also argue that the personnel recovery mission angered the local population, and created patterns in troops’ movement that made insurgent attacks easier.

None of that has been enough to quell critics who accuse the soldiers of smearing Bergdahl and exaggerating the role his disappearance played in the deaths of the six men.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he didn’t “know of circumstances or details of U.S. soldiers dying as a result of efforts to find and rescue Sgt. Bergdahl.” A U.S. official told CNN last week that Pentagon and Army officials have looked at the claims, and “right now there is no evidence to back that up.”

The six men killed were in the 501st Infantry. All of them were killed in Paktika Province between August 18 and September 6, 2009, after the intense initial search for Bergdahl concluded but within the two- to three-month period when, by accounts from more than 20 members of the 501st, essentially every mission in the province had a PR component to it. One of those killed was from Comanche Company, two of those killed were in Bergdahl’s Blackfoot Company, three were from Headquarters Company.” CNN story 6/10/2014