Defending Bowe Bergdahl

It was October 1967 that I was invited to Cambodia to take brief custody of three American soldiers being released in a gesture from the National Liberation Front (Vietcong). At the time I was an innocent 28 years old, the age of Bowe Bergdahl when he was released in a prisoner swap last year after five years of grueling captivity. I had a flashback to those times when Army General Robert Abrams ordered that Bergdahl be court-marshaled as a deserter despite far more lenient misdemeanor recommendations from the army lawyer who held a preliminary hearing in September. That officer concluded that there should be "no jail sentence at the end of this process" for Bergdahl. (See LA Times, Dec. 15, 2015.)