One of the soldiers who served alongside Bowe Bergdahl and joined the perilous hunt for the missing serviceman in Afghanistan said he was deeply ‘frustrated’ that a judge had overturned the results of a court-martial.
Josh Cornelison, 34, told DailyMail.com: ‘The mind boggles because eight years later he’s basically free of any repercussions because of a loophole, somebody else’s mistake.
‘He potentially gets reinstated. He could get his benefits back, backpay, anything that anyone who was discharged honorably gets.’
Cornelison, who served as an E4 specialist medic in Second Platoon, Blackfoot Company of the First Battalion, 501st Regiment, said Bergdahl should face a fresh trial.
His platoon-mate walked off his base in Afghanistan in June 2009 and was held by the Taliban for almost five years before being released in a prisoner swap.
Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl sparked a manhunt when he went missing in Afghanistan. On Tuesday, his dishonorable discharge and conviction were thrown out by a fresh ruling
Josh Cornelison served alongside Bergdahl in Afghanistan: ‘The mind boggles because eight years later he’s basically free of repercussions because of … somebody else’s mistake’
He described being beaten and tortured. He spent months locked in a cage or chained to a bed.
In 2017, he pleaded guilty before a military judge to charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He was reduced in rank, dishonorably discharged and effectively fined $10,000.
However, the case had become a political cause for President Donald Trump, who called for Bergdahl to be executed.
And the military judge, Jeffery R. Nance, then an Army colonel, did not disclose that he had applied for a job with Trump’s Justice Department.
On Tuesday, US District Judge Reggie B. Walton said that amounted to a possible conflict of interest.
His 63-page decision threw out all of the judge’s rulings after October 27.
‘This case presents a unique situation where the military judge might be inclined to appeal to the president’s expressed interest in the plaintiff’s conviction and punishment when applying for the immigration judge position,’ he wrote.
Bergdahl watches as one of his captors displays his identity tag to the camera at an unknown location in Afghanistan, July 19, 2009, in a video
‘Taliban five’: The terror leaders traded for Bergdahl were (top, from left): Abdul Haq Wasiq, Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa, Mohammad Nabi Omari; and (bottom from left): Mohammad A Fazl, Mullah Norullah Noori
Bergdahl, in white, boards a helicopter in eastern Afghanistan after his 2014 release
Legal scholars said that left the Army with a quandary. To retry him, he would have to be brought back to active duty.
Cornelison said he was intensely ‘frustrated’ by the outcome.
‘I was I was there day in day out, every single hour, every single day for three months looking for Bowe Bergdahl and then, for it all, just to be kind of swept clean, after a f***-up by some some judge who didn’t have to deal with the kind of day in and day out grind that we all went through …’ he said by phone from his home in Sacramento, California, his voice tailing off in disbelief.
He and his platoon mates blame Bergdahl for injuries and a death sustained during the search. With U.S. activity high in the Afghan province of Paktika, he said the Taliban simply had more targets to shoot at.
Master Sgt. Mark Allen was shot in the head in June 2009. He suffered life changing injuries and died in 2019.
Master Sgt. Mark Allen, seen here with friends, was shot in the head during the search for Bergdahl. He died in 2019
Bergdahl later said he was intending to trek to another military post to report wrongdoing in his unit. But medics later said he was suffering from a ‘sever mental disease or defect’ at the time, and his platoon mates suggested he may have seen himself as a character in an action thriller.
Bergdahl ended up in the custody of Al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network.
A deal brokered by the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar eventually brought him home, but at the cost of releasing the Taliban insurgents from the military prison complex at Guantanamo, Cuba.
Four are now serving in the Taliban’s Afghan government.
Republicans condemned the deal, saying it came at too high a price, bringing a political dimension to the case.
Cornelison, who served four years in the Army, said some people might think Bergdahl had already suffered enough from his years of captivity.
‘It is important to remind people now, eight years later, that there were real people on the ground looking for him every single day,’ he said.
‘Especially us being his platoon. So he was one of our 30 guys that you’re supposed to be able to rely on for literally everything.’