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THE NEW MEXICAN Sunday, June 1, 2014
Apathy: Party plans to rally behind nominee Continued from Page A-1
Accompanied by President Barack Obama, Jani Bergdahl and Robert Bergdahl speak about the release of their son, U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, during a news conference Saturday in the Rose Garden of the White House. CAROLYN KASTER/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lesson for a prisoner’s father: Men sometimes do come back By Elisabeth Bumiller, Michael S. Schmidt and Andrew W. Lehren
Bowe Bergdahl, left, appears in a video released by the Taliban in 2010. U.S. officials say Bergdahl, the only American soldier held prisoner in Afghanistan, has been freed and is in U.S. custody.
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — For five years, Robert Bergdahl waged a father’s war for the return of his soldier son. He accused the Obama administration of stalling talks for his release. He made his own contact with the Taliban to try to find out more. He pressured the U.S. State Department and Pentagon during frequent trips to Washington, where in 2012 he spoke in anguish to a crowd of 100,000 on Memorial Day. A father’s war came to an end Saturday with the freeing of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, who had been America’s only known prisoner of war. But Bergdahl, a skier, expert marksman and ballet dancer from rural Idaho, will remain one of the more unusual members of the U.S. military — and the central character in a bizarre disappearance in Afghanistan that set off a frantic search with Predator drones, Apache attack helicopters and military tracking dogs. “Men don’t come back from this, you know,” Robert Bergdahl bleakly warned his son at Christmas 2008, just before he was deployed. On Saturday, in a statement from both of the sergeant’s parents, Robert Bergdahl and his wife, Jani — written after President Barack Obama telephoned to tell them of their son’s release — the tone had changed: “We were so joyful and relieved when President Obama called us today to give us the news that Bowe is finally coming home!” they wrote. “We cannot wait to wrap our arms around our only son.” Bowe Bergdahl grew up as an outdoorsy free spirit in Hailey, Idaho, a town of some 6,000 people that provided many of the self-described “worker bees” for the expensive resorts of Ketchum and Sun Valley to the north. His father, an anthropology major who had dropped out of college, drove a delivery truck for United Parcel Service. His mother homeschooled Bergdahl and his elder sister, Sky. The family lived in a small cabin that had 5,000 books but no telephone, a close-to-nature existence that fed Bergdahl’s wanderlust. After a series of odd jobs, including as a crew member on a large sailboat and dancing the role of the Nutcracker in the Sun Valley Ballet, friends and family say he turned to the Army to try to find focus in his life. He was lured by the promises of Army recruiters that he would be helping people in other parts of the world, his father said in an interview two years ago,
INTELCENTER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
and had come to see the military as a Peace Corps with guns. Those dreams were dashed soon after Bergdahl arrived in Afghanistan, in May 2009, when U.S. forces were stretched thin. As a machine gunner with the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, he was sent to a small combat outpost in Paktika province, on the eastern border with Pakistan. At first, his emails home were cheerful, his father said, full of stories about “how beautiful it was, how wonderful the people were.” The tone of the emails quickly darkened, said his father, who declined in the interview to say what specifically set off the change. But in an interview with Robert and Jani Bergdahl in Rolling Stone magazine in June 2012, the parents described morale and discipline problems in the unit and quoted from what the Bergdahls said was their son’s last email to them, three days before his capture. “I am sorry for everything here,” Bowe Bergdahl said in the email, according to Rolling Stone. “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live.” He then described what his parents believed may have been a formative, traumatic event: seeing an Afghan child run over by a heavy U.S. military vehicle. “We don’t even care when we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets with our armored trucks,” Bergdahl wrote. Bergdahl’s superiors first noticed he was missing on the morning of June 30, 2009, when he failed to show up for the unit’s 9 a.m. roll call. Initial military reports said Bergdahl had simply walked off his post, but in a Taliban video released after his capture, Bergdahl said he had lagged behind on a patrol. The military had numerous indications after Bergdahl’s capture that he was still alive, mostly
from videos released by the Taliban. (At the time of his disappearance, Bergdahl had the rank of private. The military promoted him twice during his captivity.) The first video surfaced in July 2009 and the following December. In that video, Bergdahl criticized the United States and said that unlike prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay and in Abu Ghraib in Iraq, he had been fairly treated and was not tortured. “One of the biggest illusions that the Army gives us coming over here as a soldier, as a private in their Army, is that we’re coming over here to fight a terrorist group of men,” he said in that video. In an April 2010 video, Bergdahl was shown begging to be released, and appeared in additional videos in December 2010, February 2011 and this past January, when he seemed in declining health. His future in the Army remains unclear. But if Bergdahl did in fact walk off his post, there has been no indication from the military that he will be punished for doing so. Any penalty appeared even more unlikely Saturday, when his parents appeared in the Rose Garden with Obama, who embraced them and welcomed their son home. As he stood at the president’s side, Robert Bergdahl said that his son was having difficulty with English after spending so much time with the Taliban, then said “bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim,” a common Arabic phrase meaning “in the name of God, most gracious, most compassionate,” then spoke what appeared to be a few words of Pashto, a language of Afghanistan. Hours earlier on Saturday, while Bowe Bergdahl was on a U.S. military helicopter after his release, he wrote on a paper plate with a pen — because the noise was so loud — “S.F.?” for Special Forces, seeking to find out who was taking him away. The men on the helicopter yelled back, “Yes, we’ve been looking for you a long time.” At which point, according to a senior defense official, Bergdahl broke down crying.
Freed: Soldier captive for 5 years Continued from Page A-1 from Cuba in the custody of officials from Qatar, who will accompany them back to that Persian Gulf state. They will be subject to security restrictions there, including a one-year travel ban. Senior administration officials cautioned that the discussions over the prisoner swap, which were secretly restarted last fall after collapsing several months earlier, did not necessarily presage the resumption of the broader, onagain-off-again peace talks to end the 13-year war. A Western official in Kabul said
the Afghan government was not told ahead of time that the Taliban were going to hand over Bergdahl or that the release of prisoners from Guantánamo Bay was proceeding, though the Afghans were broadly aware that the talks had been rekindled. U.S. officials feared leaks could scuttle the deal. President Barack Obama personally called the soldier’s parents Saturday, shortly after Bergdahl was transferred to the U.S. military; the Bergdahl family was in Washington after a visit here for Memorial Day, officials said. Later Saturday in the White
House Rose Garden, Obama, flanked by Robert and Jani Bergdahl, the sergeant’s parents, said, “Right now, our top priority is making sure that Bowe gets the care and support that he needs, and that he can be reunited with his family as soon as possible.” The Bergdahls, who have waged a tireless campaign for their son’s release, have sometimes criticized the Obama administration for lack of action. But at the impromptu Rose Garden appearance and in a statement released earlier in the day, they praised the U.S. and Qatari governments for their help.
about their candidate preference, last week’s Journal poll showed King getting more support than any of his opponents. He led Rael and Webber by 6 percentage points. Further back were Morales and Lopez. Many attributed King’s lead to name recognition. He’s held state office for more than seven years and is the son of former Gov. Bruce King and beloved former first lady Alice King. The money race told a slightly different story, however. According to last week’s reports, Webber had $161,795 cash on hand, Rael had $109,486, King had $75,518, Morales $25,134 and Lopez $19,757. And like a dark cloud over the Democrats’ parade, Republican Martinez reported having nearly $4.3 million in the bank as of last week. King’s last report showed him raising only about $40,000 in contributions during most of May, although his war chest was boosted by a loan from himself for more than $195,000. Through the course of the campaign, King has loaned himself more than $300,000, which has covered the bulk of his spending. Webber also has contributed or loaned himself a big chunk — more than $450,000. But his recent campaign finance reports have not shown any personal loans or contributions. Rael and Morales also have made contributions to their own campaigns. King’s campaign manager, Jim Farrell, admitted in an interview Friday that fundraising has been tough for Democrats. “No Democrat will ever have the money Martinez has been getting from the Koch brothers and the Texas oil oligarchs,” he said. “I’m confident Gary will have enough resources for the general election.” Farrell said King, who is part of a wealthy ranching family, wouldn’t have to self-finance in the general election. Rael’s campaign showed a low cash haul last week, reporting only $42,792. Campaign spokesman Kyle Armstrong said, “We are actually pleased with our fundraising totals, given that we were more focused on building a field operation and getting Lawrence in front of voters. … We put our efforts into moving volunteers and coordinators into key counties.” Rael and Webber were the first to launch television ads. King began running an ad last week, while Morales joined in only Friday. Webber and Rael both have used ads to attack Martinez. Morales, in his spot, just said he could beat Martinez “and bring world-class education to New Mexico.” King didn’t even mention the governor. One thing all the Democratic gubernatorial candidates’ ads have in common is that none of them attack any of their primary opponents. That’s been true at candidate forums as well, where none of the Democrats have laid a glove on another. “This primary has been an unusually positive and constructive contest,” Farrell said. When the last poll was published, showing King in the lead, some pundits suggested the other candidates, especially Rael and Webber, would have to “go negative” by airing some ads attacking King. That didn’t happen. “We have stayed focused on criticizing Gov. Martinez,” said Neri Holguin, campaign manager for Webber. “That is where our attention needs to be, and that’s where it’ll stay.” (A Webber ad that premiered last week, however, does not criticize Martinez.) Rael spokesman Armstrong said, “We didn’t decide to ‘lay off’ Gary King, we decided to run on Lawrence’s record of delivering results.” He said King getting 22 percent in the poll was not a good place for “a sitting attorney general with several statewide races under his belt and a high name ID.” Armstrong said Rael would not win over undecided voters by attacking King. “They’ll be persuaded by the candidate who can take on Susana Martinez and can deliver results as governor,” he said. On Friday, the state Democratic Party announced a “Unity Press Conference,” scheduled for Wednesday morning. The party expects to have all five candidates there to rally around the nominee, party spokesman David Harwell said. What’s in store for the next two days? Holguin said the Webber campaign was “shifting into [get-out-the-vote] mode” over the weekend. “On Monday, we are hosting a get-outthe-vote rally in Santa Fe at El Farol,” she said. “We have an army of volunteers on Monday and Tuesday across the state making phone calls to Democratic voters.” Webber apparently decided to spend the last days of his campaign in Albuquerque and Northern New Mexico. He had campaign stops planned in Española, Corrales and Albuquerque for Sunday. Webber also is making a play for younger voters, a group that isn’t well-known for heavy participation in the primary elections, especially in nonpresidential years. He planned “Young Creatives” events in Albuquerque on Friday and in Santa Fe on Saturday. The invitations read: “#WebberitesUnite! Bring Your Laptop or smart phone! We’re going to prove just how powerful a unified group of dynamic, inspired creatives can be!” That’s a sharp contrast with King, who, according to Farrell, spent most of last week visiting senior centers. “We’re making a real push with senior centers,” Farrell said. “We know they are strong primary voters.” The appeal to seniors also is apparent in King’s TV spot. In one part, the ad shows two older women, one of whom says, “Gary is the only candidate who protected our seniors by cracking down on con artists.” Rael will focus on the Belen-Albuquerque-Santa Fe corridor for the rest of the primary, Armstrong said. “We just finished up a big swing through Rio Arriba, Taos and San Miguel,” he said. “There are still a lot of undecided voters who will go to the polls on Tuesday, and we think these are the counties that will decide the election.” Contact Steve Terrell at sterrell@sfnewmexican.com. Read his political blog at roundhouseroundup.com.
WHERE TO VOTE Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 3, at the following Santa Fe County locations, where registered Democrats and Republicans can cast ballots for the primary election:
Precincts 1, 2: Sombrillo Elementary School, 20 N.M. 106 3: Benny J. Chavez Center, 354 A Juan Medina Road. 4: Cundiyó Community Center, 5 Jose Simon Drive 5: El Rancho Community Center, 394 County Road 84 6: Tesuque Pueblo Intergenerational Center, 39 TP 804 7: Rio en Medio Community Center, 1 El Alto 8: Tesuque Elementary School, 1555 Bishops Lodge Road 9, 36, 47: Acequia Madre Elementary School, 700 Acequia Madre 10, 30: Fort Marcy Recreation Complex, 490 Bishops Lodge Road 11, 20, 21: Gonzales Community School, 851 W. Alameda St. 12, 62: La Cienega Community Center, 136 Camino San Jose 13, 68: Hondo Fire Station No. 2, 645 Old Las Vegas Highway 14: Turquoise Trail Charter School, 13 A San Marcos Loop 15, 16: South Mountain Elementary School, 577 N.M. 344 17: Galisteo Community Center, 35 Avenida Vieja 18, 85: Edgewood Middle School, 17 W. Venus Road 19: Stanley Community Center, 13 W. Kinsell Ave. 22, 28: Montezuma Lodge, 431 Paseo de Peralta 23, 61: Nambé Community Center/Senior Sentor, 180 A N.M. 503 24: Academy at Larragoite, 1604 Agua Fría St. 25, 33: Aspen Community Magnet School, 450 La Madera St. 26, 27: Tierra Encantada Charter School at Alvord, 551 Alarid St. 29, 56, 78: Santa Fe County Fair Building, 3229 Rodeo Road 31, 32, 34: Salazar Elementary School, 1231 Apache Ave. 35, 50: Nava Elementary School, 2655 Siringo Road 37, 54, 81: Capshaw Middle School, 351 W. Zia Road 38, 39, 49, 74: Genoveva Chavez Community Center, 3221 Rodeo Road 40: San Ildefonso Pueblo Visitor Center, 74 Povi Kaa Drive 41, 51: De Vargas Middle School, 1720 Llano St. 42, 43: Educational Services Center, 610 Alta Vista St. 44: Wood Gormley Elementary School, 141 E. Booth St. 45, 46: Unitarian Church, 107 W. Barcelona Road 48, 55: St. John’s Methodist Church, 1200 Old Pecos Trail 52: E.J. Martinez Elementary School, 401 W. San Mateo Road 53: Pasatiempo Senior Center, 664 Alta Vista St. 57: Glorieta Fire Station, 43 Fire Station Road 58, 79: Abedon Lopez Community Center, 155 A Camino de Quintana 59, 60: Pojoaque Middle School, 1797 N.M. 502 63, 65, 69, 71: Eldorado Community School, 2 Avenida Torreon 64, 75: Sweeney Elementary School, 4100 S. Meadows Road 66, 80: Agua Fría Community Center, 1 Prairie Dog Loop 67: Ramirez Thomas Elementary School, 3200 Calle Po Ae Pi 70: Amy Biehl Community School, 301 Avenida del Sur 72: St. Joseph’s Parish Hall, 2 E. Waldo St. 73, 84: Edgewood Elementary School, 171 N.M. 344 76, 77: Chaparral Elementary School, 2451 Avenida Chaparral 82: La Tierra Fire Station, 6 Arroyo Calabasas Road 83: Unity Church of Santa Fe, 1212 Unity Way 86: Ortiz Middle School, 4164 S. Meadows Road 87: Nambé Pueblo Tribal Administration Building, 15 Bayay Poe 88: Turquoise Trail Charter School, 13 A San Marcos Loop 89: César Chávez Community School, 6251 Jaguar Drive