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ThirdWheelWanted -> RE: Bergdahl (6/7/2014 10:37:37 AM)
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ORIGINAL: DomKen
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ORIGINAL: HornyDaisy
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ORIGINAL: DomKen
In the real world desertion has a definition and so does treason and Bergdahl meets neither. His command can charge him with a bunch of stuff, being UA, dereliction, disobeying but not desertion. It's the sort of stuff he very well might not even get court martialed for in peace time but I expect he will in this case. But really he's spent 5 years in a cage already what more should be done to him?
Desertion is leaving one's post without being relieved, with the intention of not returning. If you're AWOL for more then 30 days, you're automatically classified as being a deserter, but that's more of an administrative action. If you're on a combat footing, this is often much more serious. Desertion during time of war/while under combat conditions, carries a maximum penalty of death. The death penalty is pretty rare now, since the Civil War it's only been carried out once. More commonly it's life without parole.
Going AWOL to "shirk important duty", which includes to miss a combat deployment or while your unit is actively deployed, is also desertion. If he went AWOL, but was captured a minute later, he's still guilty of desertion. If he colluded with the enemy after deserting, those are the sort of extenuating circumstances that gets the charges increased from just a few years to life or worse.
Since it is fairly well established that he intended to come back desertion is off the table.
Going UA and getting captured does not make you guilty of desertion. No one has ever been treated that way before. And it has happened before.
And escaping from captivity twice seems to be indicative of not colluding with his captors.
It's really amusing how you skipped right over the section that makes your statement pointless. Let's try this again.
1) If you go AWOL (Not UA, there's no such thing, especially in the Army) to "shirk important duty", which includes to miss a combat deployment or while your unit is actively combat deployed (being on a small hilltop in Iraq certainly seems to qualify) it's desertion. It doesn't matter if you're gone a minute or a year, it's desertion, this is especially true if he left when he should have been on guard duty. If that's the case, he endangered the entire command in order to leave, which again, is desertion.
2) Regardless of your opinion, if he deserted (see #1 above), even if he was subsequently captured, he is still a deserter. One does not alter the other.
3) If the radio traffic that was reported is accurate, he left his post and traveled to a nearby town to talk to the enemy. That's collusion.
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