The U.S. Army is set to decide whether Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl is entitled to as much as $300,000 in back pay and other benefits he amassed during his captivity with the Taliban.
Military personnel who have risked their lives to serve their country should be loudly protesting, except that they may face punishment; after all, the Army has been protecting the traitor Bergdahl for some time, forcing soldiers who knew the truth about Bergdahl’s betrayal to “sign nondisclosure agreements.”
It is American citizens who would be forking over Bergdahl’s back pay (albeit it is less than the $10,500,000 Canadians had for pay to the murderous jihadi Omar Khadr because his lawyers cried so loudly that he was mistreated at Guantanamo Bay in 2003), thus rewarding Bergdahl for his deeds instead of punishing him.
To recap the circumstances around the disgraced Bergdahl: there have been efforts all along to conceal the truth about Bergdahl being a deserter. Instead, the Army allowed the lie to circulate that Bergdahl fell behind on patrol before being captured by the Taliban, then was held hostage for five years. In the meantime, soldiers from his own unit lost their lives trying to track him down.
Despite Bergdahl’s confession as a deserter – and that of witnesses — Barack Obama still “traded five seasoned, battle-hardened jihadis back to the Taliban in exchange for Bergdahl,” who did not just desert: secret documents revealed that Bergdahl had converted to Islam and “declared jihad” while in captivity.
By now it should be evident that Bergdahl should have been charged with treason, but instead, he was recently given a dishonorable discharge without prison time, after absurdly declaring that the US had treated him worse than the Taliban did. Now he could be given back pay of $300,000.
The Army needs an overhaul, beginning with mandatory training in loyalty to America, followed by knowledge about its jihadist enemies and how to defeat them. That would beat giving free lunches to jihadists, appeasing them and prancing about wearing high heels.
“Army to decide if Bergdahl is entitled to $300G back pay”, by Lukas Mikelionis, Fox News, November 9, 2017:
The U.S. Army is set to decide whether Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl is entitled to as much as $300,000 in back pay and other benefits he amassed during his captivity with the Taliban.
Bergdahl, 31, was captured by the Taliban in 2009 after he walked off base while in Afghanistan. He was given a dishonorable discharge and he was demoted from sergeant to private in a court decision earlier this month but spared prison. President Trump called the ruling a “complete and total disgrace.”
Captive soldiers normally receive special compensation worth around $150,000 in addition to hostile-fire pay and their basic pay they accumulated during the captivity. But determining whether Bergdahl should receive the back pay is not as clear-cut.
The State Department marked Bergdahl in as “Missing-Captured” several days after he was captured and the terror group released a video featuring him alive, Military.com reported in 2014.
But Bergdahl pleaded guilty to desertion in court, complicating whether the army will consider him as a prisoner of war and thus entitled to back pay and compensation.
“My understanding is there has to be an administrative determination of his duty status at each point, from the time he was captured until now,” an army official told the Army Times. “In order to figure out what he’s owed, you’re basically going to have to start from that point of captivity.”
The official told the Times that it is possible Bergdahl will be given only his accumulated basic pay during his five-year captivity.
Bergdahl, however, might not be eligible for the basic back pay and could even owe money to the military. The Army could determine that he should not be paid for the time in captivity or that he was overpaid since his return to the U.S, according to the official who spoke with the Times……