Bowe Bergdahl's Orthodox Presbyterian Background

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Presbyterian_Church

In order to understand Bowe Bergdahl, it's important to consider his two contradictory faiths. He was mainly educated in an Orthodox Presbyterian, ultra-religious, home-schooling environment.

As a truck driver's son, he has a blue collar, financially disadvantaged, high-risk, illiterate childhood, not an elite prep school background.

He then joined a Buddhist monastery, as a young adult. He may have had bipolar disorder. Joining a Buddhist monastery is not the same as visiting one, or wanting to be a Buddhist monk, like your favorite meditation author(s).

Those two religions are both contradictory, yet both are despised by Al-Qaeda, which also preys upon moderate Muslims, globally. Then, he joined the U.S. Coast Guard. During his bootcamp, he was discharged and later went into the U.S. Army.

Prior to being captured by the Taliban, possibly due to his Afghani associates, who may have also infiltrated his military base, he seemed disillusioned by the U.S. Army. Anyone who has served in the U.S. military has probably called home upset about something.

In bootcamp, every single person has probably called home crying, or upset about the challenges there. Most likely, in the U.S. Navy, they would also look terrible. Disillusionment can sometimes occur in the military. It's also a melting pot, like any major U.S. city.

Adding in those overseas chain of command changes, naturally means the stress level is magnified. Each new U.S. Army supervisor had a different managerial style and expectations for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a possibly dyslexic, bipolar, PTSD, Army Private at the time.

Each one may have contradicted the previous way that he was trained, causing him to feel unnecessarily punished. From his awkwardly articulated, misspelled letters, a contrast to his father's writing, he appeared learning disabled. That would have exacerbated his ability to retrain successfully under his new supervisors.

Letters from boot camp are often written by traumatized, sleep-deprived individuals who have hair stucking up everywhere on their heads. The ordeal of being captured by the Taliban is far worse than any training to prepare these soldiers for duty in Afghanistan.

As he was trained, then re-trained by his new Army supervisors, was he outcasted for being a former ballet student? Yes, possibly, but how was his conduct towards the GLBT in his youth, including young adulthood?

As people think they're able to understand the potentially false, uverifiable, tampered e-mails, letters between Bowe Bergdahl and his father with references to a "obedience to  conscience," they may mistakenly envision the scenarios from "A Few Good Men."

That is not the actual case here. Those references are to the childhood faith that Bergdahl was raised to believe, by his Orthodox Presbyterian parents.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowe_Bergdahl

Those Orthodox Presbyterian references were probably another reason for Bergdahl's captors to torture him further, as punishment for their perception of "anti-Christian, sharia reasonings" to rationalize their terrorist campaigns.

Those Christian references and his Orthodox Presbyterian upbringing may lead to escalated discrimination against him, after five years of unlawful imprisonment and torture by terrorists.

The jury must interpret whether Bergdahl left his duty post on his own free will, not if he was captured, or tortured. The U.S. Army already decided that he was indeed captured and held against his will.

Since he left his Orthodox Presbyterian faith, he may feel a natural sense of disillusionment with all religions, and therefore, feel as if he were a disappointment to his Orthodox Presbyterian parents now.

It's possible that his Afghani "friends" were Al-Qaeda recruiters and/or spies also. If he knew and participated in terrorism, prior to his capture, was it under duress?

In that wartime environment, in enemy territory, yes, it is impossible to conclude that any communication he had with the locals, were without an element of inherent danger/coercion.

This is a situation similar to what law enforcement face when they go into prisons. They're surrounded by convicted criminals. If asked anything, by a large group that could possibly riot, would it not be safer for them to choose diplomacy, while outnumbered?

What if it meant they could have a drink of water, or get unshackled while in captivity, to use the toilet? Could they be liable for saying the things their captors want to hear, on camera, or through tampered letters that can't actually be submitted, as there are no ways to prove their actual validity, or the conditions under which each one was written?

The answer is no, Bowe Bergdahl can not be punished for unverifiable communications, prior to his capture. Those communications have no biometric verifications, nor do they likely have any MAC addresses.

If forced to testify, could he have sustained too many head injuries, to also understand his right to remain silent, on his own behalf? Yes, it's possible that he also now has permanent brain damage, complex PTSD and other medical complications from being imprisoned for five years by the Taliban.

The U.S. Army has given him some treatment, but admitted that he still has a long road to a full recovery. That road to a full recovery includes medical, psychological and spiritual healing.

Any dehumanizing or discrimination of his Orthodox Presbyterian upbringing will further harm his recovery from that prolonged imprisonment and torture by the Taliban, normalize, legitimize and validate terrorism against all U.S. military service members.