How does everyone feel about PFC Bergdahl? How does one get meritoriously promoted for being a deserter?

The main issue is that this has now become political with the Obama Administration being directly involved and not to mention all the positive mass media attention. Is kind of interesting that it happened in the middle of the VA investigation but that is another issue.

I dont need to tell any of you how complicated this will now get now that politicians are involved. Already his hometown and county are planning a welcome home ceremony and his congressman Rep Mike Simpson has put his name out there as well. I just hope that this is not covered up by politics.

Also keep in mind the men in his old platoon all signed non-disclosure agreements about his "disappearance." I personally I spoken to people in his old unit and they all pretty much said the same story. But also keep in mind the toll of blood involved in not only his unit but other units that went looking for him. This is my 2 cents.

If I could ask Bergdahl one question right now, it would have to be, "where the hell were you going?" Seriously, he wallks away from his base with a camera, a compass, and a diary. Where did he think he was going to walk to?

LOL, probably planned to walk down to the coast and hop a freighter back to the US. (Yes, I know that Afghanistan is landlocked. That was a joke.)

I thought we didnt negotiate with terrorist so how was this trade deal even made?

I don't have enough information to have an informed/useful opinion. It does, however, say a lot that one U.S. SGT is equivalent to 5 top Taliban thugs on the open exchange market.

His official status was POW and as long as I can remember POWs were advanced on schedule since they are unavailable for testing. A lot of Navy Pilots had a lot higher ranks coming out of POW status in Vietnam then what they had when they were shot down.

I'm sorry, but this is crap....men died looking for him. Let me repeat that, MEN DIED LOOKING FOR HIM!!!! He made a choice to walk away from his post. His desitions sound like they didn't work out the way he planned. He was captured. We did have to make a trade to get him back. If they got the chips in correctly, without their knowledge, and got a drone strike to make it our advantage is the only good thing to come out of this. But the bottom line is men died looking for him because of his choice. Along with choice and action comes CONCIQUENCES. He shld be prosecuted for man slauter at the very least for each man who died looking for him. Right now I consider him Americas black eye...

You know, I have no idea. Again, I'm going to bring up my Corps experience, so commence with the eye-rolling, but here it goes:
We LOVE the Corps with a passion... we absolutely would love to be Marines for life... those of us who wanted a Career, mind you, but it doesn't turn out that way for most of us.
You see, when they open up a slot for Sergeant or Staff Sergeant in an MOS, often there are like... five or six for the entire Corps... with about a thousand great people up for it. If you have a Page 11 entry... if your PFT is down a point below someone else... if there is the slightest ding on your record for ANYTHING, they will go right past you and promote someone else.
I knew people that were asked how many holes there were in a C-rat Cracker at a promotion board, simply because they had ten perfect Marines, and they only had slots that time for eight...
That, in effect is why so many Marines, who have their hearts set on a career, will jump from one service to another, because there isn't any such thing nowadays as a career sergeant...

Now, knowing that, you might understand how most every Marine feels about Bergdahl now. We bust our collective butts for each and every stripe, and then a deserter is just tossed stripes and a mountain of back-pay.... No, its not something I can stomach, especially knowing that good people died trying to find him when he walked.
He deserves nothing. end of comment.

This is a failure in Bergdahl's leadership, from his first line supervisor to his commanding officer. He was administratively discharged from the US Coast Guard for memtal health issues. The Army took him anyway. His conduct before and while deployed should have alerted his leadership to intervene and remove him for his and his unit's safety. A good NCO would have prevented this whole situation. Too bad he did not have one to help him.

Whoa! I did not know this part of the story. So Bergdahl was a PFC went he lost his mind, wandered off, or deserted. Then with what his fellow soldiers had to say about him and the fact that he just left his gun, something I doubt his captures would leave behind if he were captured, he gets promoted twice? From E-2 (PFC) to E-4 then to E-5 Sgt? WTF-Over? Now I just read he wants to be addressed by his old rank PFC. Maybe we should address him as him by his Islamic name since he has such a hard time remembering English.

I swear Steven King cannot come up with stuff (wanted to use the other S word) as bizarre as this. Goo-goo daddy in the banana patch.

I am still trying to figure out how he can be meritoriously promoted. What was his official status? In Vietnam, were POWs meritoriously promoted? How does he walk off his post as a PFC and get promoted twice and into a rank of leadership?

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but this has me scratching my head.