13 Things You Need to Know About Bowe Bergdahl [View all]

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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/13-things-you-need-to-know-about-bowe-bergdahl-20140602



1) Bowe grew up near Hailey, Idaho, the son of California expats and ski bums Jani and Bob Bergdahl, who lived "nearly off the grid" on 40 acres, home-schooling Bowe and his sister Sky in a demanding curriculum:

Devout Calvinists, they taught the children for six hours a day, instructing them in religious thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine. "Ethics and morality would be constant verbiage in our conversations," his father recalls. "Bowe was definitely instilled with truth. He was very philosophical about perceiving ethics."

2) Obsessed with Bear Grylls and Man vs. Wild, Bowe sought at age 20 to join the French Foreign Legion.

He traveled to Paris and started to learn French, but his application was rejected. "He was absolutely devastated when the French Foreign Legion didn't take him," Bob says.

3) Seeking adventure, instead, in American uniform, Bergdahl enlisted in the Army in 2008. His intensity alienated fellow soldiers. A friend from his unit, Jason Fry, recalled Bowe's fierce independence and his prophetic warning:

"He wanted to be a mercenary, wanted to be a free gun," says Fry. "He had a notion he was a survivalist, claimed he knew how to survive with nothing because he grew up in Idaho…. Before we deployed… him and I were talking about what it would be like," Fry recalls. Bowe looked at his friend and made no bones about his plans. "If this deployment is lame," Bowe said, "I'm just going to walk off into the mountains of Pakistan."

4) Bergdahl's unit in Afghanistan — part of the Obama surge — was beset by deficits of leadership, "a collapse in unit morale and an almost complete breakdown of authority."

The unruly situation was captured by … a British documentary filmmaker [whose] footage shows a bunch of soldiers who no longer give a shit: breaking even the most basic rules of combat, like wearing baseball caps on patrol instead of helmets.



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