Bowe Bergdahl

Beaudry Robert "Bowe" Bergdahl (born March 28, 1986) is a former United States Army soldier who was held captive from 2009 to 2014 by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Bergdahl was captured after leaving his post on June 30, 2009. The circumstances under which Bergdahl went missing and how he was captured by the Taliban have since become subjects of intense media scrutiny. He was released on May 31, 2014, as part of a prisoner exchange for five high ranking Taliban members who were being held at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

Bergdahl was tried by general court-martial on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, and on October 16, 2017, he entered a guilty plea before a military judge at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. On November 3, 2017, he was sentenced to be dishonorably discharged, reduced in rank to private and fined $1,000 per month from his pay for ten months, with no prison time. The fine and reduction in rank took effect immediately, while the discharge was stayed pending appeals to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals and later to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which affirmed the sentence on August 27, 2020. Bergdahl then filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to have a U.S. federal judge review his sentence. On July 25, 2023, the judge issued a ruling that voided his 2017 court-martial conviction.

Early life and education

Bergdahl was born in 1986 in Sun Valley, Idaho. He is of Norwegian and Swedish ancestry. He has an older sister. Both Bergdahl and his sister were home schooled by their mother in Hailey, Idaho. The family attended Sovereign Redeemer Presbyterian Church, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church.