American Cipher

by Matt Farwell

  Reactions from the veterans who had attended Bergdahl’s trial contrasted starkly with the anger and outrage in the press. Even before the verdict, Hatch told the Associated Press that he had gone from “I’d like to kill him” to “he should go to jail forever” to a final, more peaceful acceptance that the process was just and fair. Another Special Forces soldier who said that he had searched for Bergdahl for years left the courthouse feeling the same way. “I was very angry with him. And then I came here, and I found out the truth,” he said.

  The social media mob went into a predictable rage. But Nance’s ruling also broke the silence of veterans who had lived the case, but never said what they had known all along.

  “The battalion and brigade staff know, and knew then, that it was a chain of command failure. He shouldn’t have deployed and when he started exhibiting signs of behavioral health issues, he should have been on the next plane home,” one Geronimo veteran wrote under a pseudonym. More problematic, he continued, was the uneven application of the UCMJ. As a specialist in Logar Province in January 2012, he had seen one of his own men sentenced to just seven months in prison and an other than honorable discharge for murdering a fellow soldier with an antitank weapon.

  Gerald Sutton keeps a framed photo of Matthew Martinek on his mantel, next to his own Purple Heart (which the Army erroneously inscribed with the name “Gary Sutton”). Six days after Bergdahl’s release, Martinek’s mother, Cheryl Brandes, was invited onto Fox News to share her response to the prisoner exchange. Her son was twenty years old when he died from wounds suffered during the September 4, 2009, ambush that also killed Second Lieutenant Darryn Andrews. Their comrades had told both families what they knew about their patrol that day: They had been searching for Bergdahl.

  “There needs to be an investigation,” Brandes told Fox News. “Why is this such a cover-up? What is the issue here? Why can they not just tell us, ‘Yes, your son was looking for another soldier?’ What’s so bad about that? There’s nothing bad about that. We just want the truth.”

  The soldiers who searched for Bowe Bergdahl did so without question. A decade later, the full story of the war they were sent to fight remains untold.

  EPILOGUE

  The scene would linger for a lifetime in the memories of the witnesses of the Army’s degradation ceremony. The parade ground was filled with an audience of the state: soldiers, press, and civil servants all performing their solemn duty to observe the spectacle. Thousands more gathered outside the walled courtyard, where a carnival atmosphere took hold as civilians strained on step stools to see the accused and shout their refrain: “Death to the traitor!”

  The young artillery officer stood tall as the adjutant tore his rank insignia from his uniform, drew the young officer’s sword from its scabbard, and broke it in two over his knee. His fellow soldiers then ripped away the buttons, gold lace, stripes, and epaulets, all rigged by a military tailor in preparation for the day’s theatrics. Stripped of his symbolic trappings, Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus was marched solemnly past the official witnesses to begin his life sentence.

  Dreyfus’s legal case was more complicated than the accepted narratives that had led him to the courtyard of the École Militaire on January 5, 1895. It would be more than a decade—and five years of exile in the notorious Devil’s Island penal colony, thousands of miles from home—before the facts of the case would be revealed and exonerate him. By the time the Army took him back, promoted him to major, and reassigned him to command another unit, the Dreyfus scandal had divided French society, testing the values of the very institutions of government that Dreyfus had been falsely accused of betraying. Those who had conspired against him had known that though their young Republic was founded on Enlightenment concepts of liberty and equality, the machine of state held hidden levers of power, if one knew how to use them.

  On November 3, 2017, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, an analagous scene played out in its own way. Outside the courthouse, a warm, autumn sun shone on the cameramen and reporters waiting to catch a glimpse of the infamous soldier walking free down the courthouse steps. An hour after Judge Nance announced his verdict, President Trump, en route to Hawaii aboard Air Force One, tweeted his own: “The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.” In the courthouse parking lot, cable news producers paced in nervous circles clutching their cell phones to their ears to discuss the latest presidential bulletin.

  It had come as no surprise. More than anyone, Trump had exploited Bergdahl and spread the lie of his alleged treason for his own benefit. Moments after his tweet, military law experts noted the irony: Now that he was president, Trump’s Twitter feed was a factor in the chain of command and with his airborne decree, he had veered into the territory of unlawful command influence and done Bergdahl a legal favor. In his ignorance of U.S. military law, Trump was likely unaware that the end of Bergdahl’s trial was not the end of his court-martial in sum. General Robert Abrams still needed to approve Nance’s verdict (which he would in May 2018), and then, as in all dishonorable discharge rulings, Bergdahl’s bad paper would be automatically appealed. In having what he thought was the final word—and with Bergdahl’s back pay and lifetime health benefits hanging in the balance—Trump had blundered into helping Bergdahl more than anyone else could have done on purpose.

  There would be no ceremony to banish Bergdahl from the military. Instead, in a spare room in the courthouse, he simply took off the uniform with the sergeant’s stripes that he had been deemed no longer fit to wear and changed into civilian clothes. He slipped out a side door, still flanked by his security detail, and into an unmarked government car idling by the curb.

  * * *

  —

  ON JANUARY 14, 2015—following months of intelligence reports generated from Bergdahl’s debriefings—a CIA drone fired a missile at a target in Pakistan in a signature strike with unintended consequences. The Hellfire hit its mark, killing two American al-Qaeda members, Ahmed Farouq and Adam Gadahn. It also killed two hostages: Warren Weinstein, a seventy-three-year-old American contractor, and Giovanni Lo Porto, a thirty-seven-year-old Italian aid worker. It had been two years since Jason Amerine added Warren Weinstein to his list of prisoners to recover along with Bergdahl. Now, he never would: After 1,250 days as a hostage, Weinstein was fatally freed from all forms of earthly captivity by a mistake. CIA characterized it as a routine oversight: The agency had no idea he was even there when the strike was approved.

  On that same day, Amerine was abruptly escorted out of the Pentagon, his pay temporary halted, his retirement put on hold. Triggered by a formal FBI complaint, the Army had opened a criminal investigation into the lieutenant colonel’s collaboration with Congressman Duncan Hunter during Amerine’s hostage recovery efforts. In early 2014, when every other official he met was happy to send Amerine running in circles, Hunter had written several letters to Defense Secretary Hagel, urging him to break up the gridlock and promote Pentagon solutions. Amerine had planned for the FBI coming for him, but never thought the Army—his home since he was a fourteen-year-old ROTC cadet—would so enthusiastically cooperate, and the Army Criminal Investigative Division Agents on his case were stunned that they even had to investigate him.

  Five months later, Amerine was at the Capitol to testify for a hearing called Blowing the Whistle on Retaliation: Accounts of Current and Former Federal Agency Whistleblowers. It took a total of ten months before the Army dropped the charges. Amerine left the Army on Halloween 2015, his retirement, full rank, and military pension intact. The Army even gave him an award, draping the Legion of Merit medal around his neck. The Obama administration, roundly criticized for its inability to recover American hostages abroad, had taken a serious look at Amerine’s complaints. In June 2015, the White House announced reforms that included a Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, to be led by the FBI, and a presidential envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department. This progre
ss carried into the Trump administration, leading to successful recoveries of hostages and prisoners from Pakistan, Egypt, North Korea, and China. On October 13, 2017, three days before Bergdahl pled guilty, Caitlan Coleman, Joshua Boyle, and their three children were released from their five-year ordeal in the FATA. Diane Foley, the mother of James Foley, told David Rohde that she considered the Trump administration more willing to negotiate than previous administrations: “I think they see the return of Americans detained abroad as a win.”

  * * *

  —

  IN THE DAYS BEFORE Nance’s verdict, Terrence Russell explained that Bergdahl still had a valuable role to play in the U.S. Armed Forces, in the SERE community. The records from their debriefings totaled twelve hundred pages, from which Russell had produced four classified JPRA reports, which he said combatant commanders had requested from him “immediately.” SERE instructors with the Air Force and Navy told him they wanted more information from the only American servicemember with a record of survival and escape in the FATA. But as long as Bergdahl was in legal hearings, Russell could not arrange more sessions. “We have forces at risk,” Russell said, citing ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Syria. “We need this information,” he told Nance, his voice rising. “The fact that I can’t get that information is wrong.” In December 2017, even as twenty-one congressmen cosponsored H.R. 4413, the “No Back Pay for Bergdahl Act,” the former prisoner had decided to accept Russell’s invitations, sit for more interviews, and speak to military and government audiences at the SERE School at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington. The multimillion-dollar facility trains pilots and aircrew in survival tactics behind enemy lines with one goal: “to ensure America’s warfighters ‘Return with Honor.’” Two months later, in early February, Bergdahl visited for several days. He recorded interviews and delivered two talks—one at the JPRA Academy and another to forty active-duty Air Force SERE school instructors at Fairchild. Bergdahl took questions, and several people approached him afterward with words of gratitude and support. If anyone was offended by Bowe Bergdahl’s appearance, Russell said, he hadn’t heard it.

  For their part, his family is trying to move on. Bob shaved his beard soon after the Rose Garden episode. Jani stopped watching the news, which she suspects is mostly scripted political drama. Bob thinks that if the Army had just appointed Fox News anchors as prosecutors, the legal process would have been a lot more efficient. As Christians, they believe that forgiveness is their obligation. Watching the young men spread lies about Bowe on television tested their faith, but Bob saw that they too had been exploited. “I don’t blame them,” he said. “I blame the Army. They were being lied to by their commanders.” The death threats never fully stopped, and the FBI had to be called back to monitor the situation from time to time. Jani sees Bowe’s survival as a miracle, where the Almighty put countless capable individuals in the places and roles where they needed to be.

  In the Wood River Valley, there’s a park close to where the Bergdahls first lived when they moved to Idaho. During the ordeal, supporters planted a tree in the park for each year Bowe was gone, five in a row. In July 2014, the town took down its yellow ribbons and posters, and the mayor told local businesses to remove their stickers of support. “The city of Hailey is not Bowe-Bergdahl-ville,” Mayor Haemmerle said. Five years after Bergdahl was freed and more than seventeen after the war began, those trees bear no signs explaining why they were planted, and Americans are still serving and dying in Afghanistan for reasons most people can’t explain.

  On a still winter’s day near their home in rural Idaho, Bob Bergdahl teaches his son, Bowe, how to shoot.

  A young Bowe shoulders his shotgun on a fall hunting trip in the foothills of southern Idaho’s Smoky Mountains.

  Bob and Bowe Bergdahl (second and third from right) with Peruvian shepherds in Blaine County, Idaho, in the early 1990s. When the Bergdahls moved to a remote mountain canyon, they came to count the shepherds as close family friends.

  Private Bowe Bergdahl at Fort Benning after graduation from Infantry One Station Unit Training with his drill sergeant from Alpha Company, 2/58, Sergeant First Class Olivera.

  Bowe, Jani, and Bob Bergdahl—with Rufus the dog—in Idaho during Bowe’s pre-deployment leave, December 2008.

  Bowe Bergdahl at OP Mest, June 2009. Upon publication in The Guardian, these photographs resulted in disciplinary action against Bergdahl and other soldiers for uniform violations.

  Made for the Bergdahls by Keith Maupin, whose son had been captured and killed in Iraq, stickers bearing Bowe’s face were ubiquitous in southern Idaho during his captivity.

  Bergdahl begs for his release in an April 2010 Taliban proof-of-life video.

  In the summer of 2010, Bergdahl escaped his captors for eight days. Soon after he was recaptured, his guards photographed him with Badruddin Haqqani, a senior commander in the Taliban-aligned Haqqani Network and the son of legendary Pashtun warlord and former CIA asset Jalaluddin Haqqani. Badruddin was killed in a drone strike in 2012.

  Black Hawk helicopter from the U.S. Army’s Task Force 160 lands with Special Operations Forces to recover Bergdahl from the Taliban on May 31, 2014. A Taliban media team filmed the handoff, which was broadcast worldwide later that day.

  Bob Bergdahl grasps the hand of POW activist and actor Gerald McCullar at the Rolling Thunder rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., May 27, 2012.

  Bob and Jani Bergdahl address the crowd gathered at the Bring Bowe Home rally on June 22, 2013, in their hometown of Hailey, Idaho, as the four-year anniversary of their son’s capture approaches.

  Bob Bergdahl poses with a POW-MIA wreath at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., April 9, 2013.

  Special Forces Captain Jason Amerine with future Afghan president Hamid Karzai in 2001. Amerine’s Special Forces team provided security for Karzai in southern Afghanistan during the opening phase of the war to overthrow the Taliban. In 2012, as a lieutenant colonel at the Pentagon, Amerine was tapped to develop options to recover American hostages from northwest Pakistan.

  Bob and Jani Bergdahl join President Barack Obama for a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden on May 31, 2014, shortly after their son’s release.

  Sergeant Bergdahl leaves the courthouse on December 22, 2015, after his arraignment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

  Eugene Fidell, Bergdahl’s civilian attorney, speaks to the media following his client’s sentencing at Fort Bragg, November 3, 2017.

  Bergdahl leaves the Fort Bragg courtroom on November 3, 2017, after his sentence was read: dishonorable discharge, a reduction in rank, and a forfeiture of pay—but no prison time.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  MATT FARWELL:

  I would like to acknowledge the following people for their role in making this project happen—first, my coauthor, Michael Ames. This book would not exist without you.

  Writing a book, it turns out, is quite hard, and I have to thank the following for their support, friendship, and advice. These people made it easier along the way.

  To Emily Cunningham, the editor and shaping force of the American Cipher project, thank you for your tireless work on this book—you made everything about this process better; I appreciate your faith, patience, and judgment.

  To Farley Chase, my agent and dear friend, who long ago took a gamble on a down-on-his-luck guy just out of the service—none of this would have happened without you. You changed my life, for the better. Thank you for being a trusted friend, advisor, and always helpful ear. . . . Now, I’ve got this idea . . .

  To Ann Godoff and Scott Moyers at Penguin Press, thank you for providing us the chance to tell this story the way it deserved to be told; I could not have dreamed of a better team at the top.

  To my family: my parents, Dr. Gary and Louise F
arwell; my siblings, Gary Marc Farwell, Tawnya Farwell, Robert and Jeni Farwell, Marrianne Tullis and Dr. Jason Tullis; my nieces and nephews, Jakob, Emma, Ashlyn, Ethan, Isabella, Henry, Charlie, Louisa, and Dr. Toni Jensen, Eva, and Miss Marie Claire and everyone in the extended Farwell, Funk families—thank you for making me who I am today and giving me something to live for.

  Lieutenant Colonel Jason Amerine, Bowe Bergdahl, Robert and Jani Bergdahl, Sky Albrecht and Michael Albrecht. Dr. Carl Jenkins, thank you for your time and your trust.

  To everyone who helped my development along the way—including quite a few who cannot be named, but should be acknowledged here with at least a single [REDACTED], thank you for allowing me to learn from you. I cannot single out all the people who’ve helped me along the way by name—there are that many—but thank you again.

  To Command Sergeant Major David M. Bruner & Nam Bruner, Lieutenant General David P. Valcourt and Diane Valcourt, Command Sergeant Major John Sparks and Karen Sparks, General William Wallace and Mrs. Wallace, General Martin Dempsey and Deanie Dempsey, General John Nicholson, Miss Cynthia in the DCG’s office, Maxie McFarland, The TRADOC JAG Staff, Colonel Chris Toner, Colonel Robert Helvey Major General Robert “Pat” White, Lieutenant Colonel John Machesney, Sergeant Major Michael Adams, Sergeant Major Dewayne Blackmon, First Sergeant Kevin Smith, First Sergeant Ty Shillito, Major Gerard Torres, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Rosenblatt, Sergeant Mike Laroche, Sergeant Carlie L. Lee, Sergeant Anthony Bautista, Staff Sergeant Sony Suprinvil, Staff Sergeant Edward Oros, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, Brigadier General Marty Schweitzer, Drill Sergeant (DSOY) Herbert Thompson, Drill Sergeant (DSOY) Delfin Romani, Staff Sergeant John Stanton, Colonel Clint Baker, Major General Michael Howard, Colonel Scott Howard, Chief Warrant Officer Four Michael Tobin, Lieutenant Colonel Chris Nunn, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Lynch, Colonel Michael Furlong, Dr. Frank Ochberg, Dr. Eugene Lipov, Suanne Massey, Julie Pearson, the staff of the VAMC of the Ozarks & the Menlo Park Psychiatric Campus, Walter Kirn, Amanda Fortini, Elise Jordan, David Fisher, Bob Kotlowitz, The United World College of the American West, Shelby and Gale Davis, Dr. Phil and Amy Geier, Justin Hulog, Susan Keppelman, Elian Maritz, Writer’s Block Bookstore, Scott and Drew Plympton, Jennifer Lee, Black Mountain Institute, The University of Arkansas, The University of Virginia, Echols Scholar Program Dean Nicole Eramo, Professor Sidney Blair, Professor Stephen Knott, Michael Lemaster, Grey Huffman, Dr. Jenni Allen, Blake Briddell, Maia Smith, Dwayne Swanson, Dr. Victoria Greenfield, Ambassador Marc Grossman, Tommy Vietor, Ned Price, Thomas Nelson Community College, Jeff Hastings, Caitlin Hayden, Congressman Duncan Hunter, Joe Kaspar, Senator Orrin Hatch, General James C. McConville, Robert Baer, Doug Laux, Tony K., Ned Price, Mohammad Tanin, Mohammad Khan, Sakhi Khan, Nabi Khan, Greg Vogle, Gary Berntsen, Jose Rodriguez, Jeff Wassmer, Colonel Nathen Noyes, The Salvador Dali Museum, The Wizards in the J-33.