Deserter...!

Written by David DiCrescenzo on . Posted in Op-Ed

Deserter..!  In the military sense, the very word conjures up the worst emotions and thoughts for the perpetrator.  With few exceptions in history, deserters and traitors have always been, rightfully I might add, dealt with harshly.  Because it’s not simply walking away from one’s post for any self-serving purpose; the soldier on your right or left was depending upon you as you had been depending upon them.  By the act of willful desertion, others are put at exponentially increased risk of danger, often including death.  So yeah, “enlightened” excuses aside, desertion is not harmless, nor is it isolated to the offender, and it deserves harsh consequences.

The reasons for desertion vary.  Fear, mental illness, and lots of other excused appeasements.  Some have and do say that it happens so often, it isn’t fair to make an example out of one deserter every so often. 

With that said, let’s have a look at some history.  The last time a US Soldier was executed for desertion was during WWII when Private Eddie Slovik was shot by a firing squad on January 31, 1945 after being found guilty of willful desertion; to this day, there is controversy surrounding that incident.  Much of that controversy surrounds what led up to his charges and execution.  Without needlessly drawing out all of the details in living color, Eddie Slovik was essentially a putz who was not exactly a candidate for citizen of the year and did a lot of stupid stuff in his mostly miss-spent youth.  However, the contrast between him and S/Sgt Bowe Bergdahl could not be more stark. 

Slovik landed in Europe in August of 1944 and as happens frequently, he got separated from his unit; and in his case wound up following a Canadian Unit around until they were able to reunite him with his own unit in October.  To make a long story short, he was a coward and let it be known in no uncertain terms that if he was sent to the front lines, he would desert; and he did just that.  When he returned he submitted a letter to an officer admitting what he’d done and that he would do it again.  When he subsequently refused to retract his damning letter and admission, he was sent to the stockade, tried, convicted and summarily executed.  While I’m not suggesting he should have been excused for his actions, there is nothing to suggest that he hated his country and he did not run to and embrace the enemy; nor did any of his comrades die or get wounded searching for him.

On the other hand, we have Bowe Bergdahl.  This is a man, another coward, who willfully abandoned his post and fled to the enemy, and in doing so, cost six other soldiers their lives, and left at least three seriously wounded while searching for him.  The families of those soldiers never got to say goodbye, celebrate their return home, laugh, cry, watch their babies grow, or any of the other things that Mr. Bergdahl and his family will get to do.  Instead, the lives of the family members of those that fell or got permanently disabled are shattered for all time. 

As if that isn’t bad enough; for five years, the enemy loving obama administration and the military complex knew he had deserted his post, yet instead of informing the nation of what he had done, they perpetrated the illusion that he may have been captured and mistreated because doing so created a public uproar that we were leaving a man behind if we didn’t do everything possible to secure his release.

Then, without the approval of Congress, he was traded in a “prisoner swap” for five of the very worst of those incarcerated in Gitmo and reportedly given a lump sum payout.  Think about that; a known deserter was traded for five notorious men, and then reportedly given a lump sum of $300K to cover back pay and other items..?!

So now this tick, this traitor, this pimple on the butt of our nation and his family who allowed themselves and him to be used by the obama administration as some sort of poster child for compassion or whatever that charade was supposed to be, was given a dishonorable discharge today with no prison sentence.  This egregiously unjust sentence is NOT the message that anyone expected from this new administration and serves to highlight the need to revisit the military code of justice while we continue to drain a very murky swamp.

As far as Mr. Bergdahl is concerned; just go away and fade into history; hide yourself in shame, find some uninformed liberal woman, get married, and have some what will certainly become milquetoast kids.  And if you have any sort of a conscience or a soul, think about the families you destroyed every time you look at your own, think about the people that will be murdered and other families ruined by the monsters they swapped for your sniveling, cowardly, spineless ass, and consider the plight of Eddie Slovik who was made an example of for doing far less than you. 

In a lot of ways, you owe Mr. Slovik a debt of gratitude as much as our nation now owes him an apology for letting the likes of you off the hook.