Navy SEAL, Dog Handler: How A Failed Mission To Rescue Bowe Bergdahl Caused Irreparable Loss

Dianna Cahn at Stars and Stripes offers a piece on a failed mission to rescue Bowe Bergdahl.

The juxtaposition of two American military men who could stand in the same courtroom in the coming months couldn’t be set in more stark relief.

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl faces a general court-martial for walking off of his base in eastern Afghanistan in 2009. Bergdahl spent five years in Taliban captivity, where he was tormented, before being freed in a controversial prisoner exchange last year.

Jimmy Hatch, a Navy SEAL senior chief who led a platoon into a fierce battle to try to rescue Bergdahl, was shot and badly wounded on that mission. Beside him, service dog Remco lay mortally wounded, after running through a hail of bullets at two Taliban fighters hiding in a ditch, exposing their whereabouts.

Bergdahl is charged with not only desertion but also misbehavior before the enemy – an archaic, rarely used charge that includes “endangering safety of a command, unit, place, ship, or military property” and has a maximum penalty of life in prison. It could help answer the question of whether Bergdahl betrayed his country intentionally or should be viewed as acting as a result of mental health problems.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.stripes.com/news/navy-seal-dog-handler-how-a-failed-mission-to-rescue-bowe-bergdahl-caused-irreparable-loss-1.385511