Stop the War Coalition
"I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live."
It is a bitter indictment of an army in trouble. It was written by the American soldier Bowe Bergdahl in his last email to his parents sent just before he walked off his base in eastern Afghanistan on 30 June 2009.
Within hours, he was picked by the Taliban who held him for five years until his exchange for five senior Taliban leaders held in the US prison at Guantanamo Bay.
“The US army is the biggest joke the world has to laugh at,” wrote Sergeant Bergdahl in an email later published by Rolling Stone magazine. “It is the army of liars, backstabbers, fools, and bullies. The few good SGTs [sergeants] are getting out as soon as they can, and they are telling us privates to do the same.”
Sgt Bergdahl had joined the army when it was short of soldiers to send to Afghanistan as part of the “surge” in the number of combat brigades there. With too few men, it had started to issue “waivers” to recruits facing felony charges or drugs problems who previously would have been turned down for the army. For Sgt Bergdahl, a crack shot, well-educated and with a romantic vision of what professional soldiering involved, disillusionment set in fast.
His company was understrength and demoralised. He complained that three good sergeants had been forced to move to another company and “one of the biggest shit bags is being put in charge of the team”. The commander of his battalion was a “conceited old fool” and other officers were as bad: “In the US army you are cut down for being honest... but if you are a conceited brown-nosing shit bag you will be allowed to do whatever you want, and you will be handed your higher rank.”
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"I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live."
It is a bitter indictment of an army in trouble. It was written by the American soldier Bowe Bergdahl in his last email to his parents sent just before he walked off his base in eastern Afghanistan on 30 June 2009.
Within hours, he was picked by the Taliban who held him for five years until his exchange for five senior Taliban leaders held in the US prison at Guantanamo Bay.
“The US army is the biggest joke the world has to laugh at,” wrote Sergeant Bergdahl in an email later published by Rolling Stone magazine. “It is the army of liars, backstabbers, fools, and bullies. The few good SGTs [sergeants] are getting out as soon as they can, and they are telling us privates to do the same.”
Sgt Bergdahl had joined the army when it was short of soldiers to send to Afghanistan as part of the “surge” in the number of combat brigades there. With too few men, it had started to issue “waivers” to recruits facing felony charges or drugs problems who previously would have been turned down for the army. For Sgt Bergdahl, a crack shot, well-educated and with a romantic vision of what professional soldiering involved, disillusionment set in fast.
His company was understrength and demoralised. He complained that three good sergeants had been forced to move to another company and “one of the biggest shit bags is being put in charge of the team”. The commander of his battalion was a “conceited old fool” and other officers were as bad: “In the US army you are cut down for being honest... but if you are a conceited brown-nosing shit bag you will be allowed to do whatever you want, and you will be handed your higher rank.”
Read more
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