Booting SGT Bergdahl Out of the Army Proving to be Difficult
Photo Credit: Reuters
As Army leaders consider how to handle the former Taliban captive who is accused of misconduct, their options are narrowed by an obscure personnel regulation: Because the former prisoner of war’s term of enlistment expired during his five years in captivity, the Army must now grant him an honorable discharge or launch a court-martial.
“We’re in an all-or-nothing situation,” said Jeffrey Addicott, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and judge advocate who served as a legal adviser to the Army Special Forces and now teaches law at St. Mary’s University School of Law in Texas.
The Army announced Monday that the investigation of Bergdahl has been forwarded to a top general, or convening authority, to take “appropriate action.”
For now Bergdahl, 28, remains assigned to a desk job at an Army headquarters unit in San Antonio. The Army declined to release any details of the six-month investigation into the circumstances surrounding his disappearance.
