NEWS | Afghanistan
U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was captured by Taliban forces on June 30, 2009.
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Missing in Action
An Idaho soldier receives growing national support during his four years as a prisoner of war BY JACOB JONES
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earing a black POW-MIA bandanna and a long beard, Bob Bergdahl stands before his Idaho hometown and calls out across distance, war and cultures to again plead for the safe return of his son, the only remaining American prisoner of war in Iraq or Afghanistan. U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 27, was captured by Taliban forces in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009. For four years, his family has awaited his homecoming to the small town of Hailey, Idaho, where yellow ribbons hang from nearly every tree trunk along its streets. “My son … if you can hear me,” Bob Bergdahl says. “You are part of the peace process. You are part of ending the Afghan war.” Hundreds gathered in a Hailey park June 22 to mark four years since Bergdahl’s capture. They planted four trees, one for each year gone. Video footage from the rally shows the elder Bergdahl speaking directly to the Afghan people
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in Pashto, asking for information on how to open a dialogue. “May we somehow, after 12 long years, find peace in Afghanistan so that our soldiers and our American personnel can come home,” he says in the video. Family spokesman Col. Tim Marsano says the Bergdahls remain optimistic after recently receiving a new letter from their son. Taliban leaders also offered a prisoner exchange last month, asking for five Taliban inmates housed at Guantanamo Bay. The sergeant’s ongoing ordeal also received renewed media coverage as the four-year mark passed last week. Marsano could not say whether the family made any special plans to observe the date. “There’s not a day that goes by … that he’s not at the forefront of their minds,” Marsano says. “So the day doesn’t really make a difference.”