Beaudry Robert "Bowe" Bergdahl (born March 28, 1986) is a former United States Army soldier who was held captive from 2009 to 2014 by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Bergdahl was captured after leaving his post on June 30, 2009. The circumstances under which Bergdahl went missing and how he was captured by the Taliban have since become subjects of intense media scrutiny. He was released on May 31, 2014, as part of a prisoner exchange for five high ranking Taliban members who were being held at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
Bergdahl was tried by general court-martial on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, and on October 16, 2017, he entered a guilty plea before a military judge at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. On November 3, 2017, he was sentenced to be dishonorably discharged, reduced in rank to private and fined $1,000 per month from his pay for ten months, with no prison time. The fine and reduction in rank took effect immediately, while the discharge was stayed pending appeals to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals and later to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which affirmed the sentence on August 27, 2020. Bergdahl then filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to have a U.S. federal judge review his sentence. On July 25, 2023, the judge issued a ruling that voided his 2017 court-martial conviction.
Bergdahl was born on March 28, 1986, in Sun Valley, Idaho. He is of Norwegian and Swedish ancestry. He has an older sister. Both Bergdahl and his sister were home schooled by their mother in Hailey, Idaho. The family attended Sovereign Redeemer Presbyterian Church, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Bergdahl received a GED certificate through the College of Southern Idaho. As an adult, Bergdahl studied and practiced fencing and martial arts before changing to ballet classes at the Sun Valley Ballet School in Ketchum, Idaho. He spent time in a Buddhist monastery between 2007 and 2008.
In 2006, Bergdahl entered basic training in the United States Coast Guard but was discharged after twenty-six days for psychological reasons, receiving an "uncharacterized discharge" as an entry-level separation.
In 2008, Bergdahl enlisted in the United States Army and graduated from the Infantry School, Alpha Company, 2-58 at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was then assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Richardson, Alaska.
According to a fellow soldier, Specialist Jason Fry, Bergdahl, whom Fry described as a loner but "focused and well-behaved", told him before deploying to Afghanistan: "If this deployment is lame, I'm just going to walk off into the mountains of Pakistan." Instead of socializing with his comrades during Thanksgiving, he studied maps of Afghanistan.
Bergdahl's unit deployed to outpost Mest-Malak in May 2009, where they conducted counterinsurgency operations. Bergdahl began learning to speak Pashto and, according to Fry, "to gravitate away from his unit [spending] more time with the Afghans than he did with his platoon". Bergdahl's father described his son to military investigators as "psychologically isolated".
On June 25, 2009, Bergdahl's battalion suffered its first casualty: First Lieutenant Brian Bradshaw was killed by a roadside bomb near the village of Yaya Kheyl, not far from Bergdahl's outpost. Bergdahl's father believes that Bradshaw and Bergdahl had grown close at the National Training Center and that Bradshaw's death darkened Bergdahl's mood.
On June 27, 2009, Bergdahl sent an e-mail to his parents before he was captured:
The future is too good to waste on lies. And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping fools with their ideas that are wrong. I have seen their ideas and I am ashamed to even be american. The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they thrive in [...] is all revolting. [...] [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. [...] [My battalion commander was] a conceited old fool. [...] 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 ... The system is wrong. I am ashamed to be an american. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools. ... The US army is the biggest joke the world has to laugh at. It is the army of liars, backstabbers, fools, and bullies. The few good SGTs are getting out as soon as they can, [...] 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 ... We don't even care when we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets with our armored trucks ... We make fun of them in front of their faces, and laugh at them for not understanding we are insulting them [...] I am sorry for everything. The horror that is america is disgusting. There are a few more boxes coming to you guys. Feel free to open them, and use them.
Bob Bergdahl responded to his son's final message not long after he received it:
Dear Bowe, In matters of life and death, and especially at war, it is never safe to ignore ones' conscience. Ethics demands obedience to our conscience. It is best to also have a systematic oral defense of what our conscience demands. Stand with like minded men when possible.
Last communication with platoon
A former senior military officer briefed on the investigation into Bergdahl's disappearance stated that on the night he went missing, Bergdahl left a note. The existence of such a note was disputed by the Obama administration during a meeting with Congress on the release of Bergdahl, according to Senator Saxby Chambliss.
In his sworn statement, Bergdahl denied leaving a note. Investigating officer Major General Kenneth Dahl acknowledged that there was no evidence of him leaving a note.
Circumstances of Bergdahl's disappearance