Fellow soldier on Bowe Bergdahl: "I just don’t think he cared for America anymore."

June 03, 2014

Writer

The release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Afghanistan over the weekend has generated a lot of controversy. Many are questioning President Obama's decision to negotiate with terrorists and exchange four prisoners for Bergdahl. Other soldiers are claiming that Bergdahl was a deserter whose selfish actions cost others their lives. In order to help shed some light on the subject, Glenn was joined SPC Josh Fuller, who served with Bergdahl in Alaska and was close with people who knew him during his service in Afghanistan. Fuller tells the story of a man who was a bit of an oddball, a soldier who left his post and whose actions put the lives of others at risk.

Glenn: I want to go now to the soldier that I talked to on the radio this morning. He’s not the only one that is questioning the motives for Sergeant Bergdahl’s release. Joshua Fuller, he met and served with Sergeant Bergdahl while the two trained in Alaska.

So how did you know him at all?

SPC Fuller: We were both in the same brigade back in Alaska. I was stationed in the 509th, and he was stationed in the 501st, and so we were both stationed in Alaska together.

Glenn: Okay, and then you went to Afghanistan together, but you were close but not –

SPC Fuller: Yes, sir. So we were in two sister battalions, two airborne sister battalions, and he was stationed at an outpost a couple clicks away from where I was at. And I was stationed at another one.

Glenn: And one of your best friends was his roommate or bunk mate?

SPC Fuller: Bunk mate, yes, sir.

Glenn: So tell me what you saw and what your friend saw on what he said.

SPC Fuller: When we were back at Rear D back in Garrison, he seemed a little oddballish and would say stuff like, you know, like what you were talking about earlier, about America was a superpower and shouldn’t be, and we’re trying to bully around the world and stuff like that, just oddball comments like that. I didn’t think too much of it until whenever this stuff happened over there, whenever he ended up leaving and deserting the post.

Glenn: So is it normal? I mean, you didn’t think much of that. Is that normal to hear people say things like that?

SPC Fuller: Yes, we’ve got quite a few oddball people. It actually happens quite a bit, but usually like when we’re in war, we’re pretty short staffed, so you can take what you can get. And so a lot of people have, you know, said stuff before. We’ve taken the bolts out of people’s M-4s before because they started to get a little crazy, and then a week or two later we think they’re okay, so we give them their bolt back to put back in their gun.

Glenn: Wow.

SPC Fuller: You get what you can.

Glenn: Okay, so when he left, and he walked out by himself, there are people that say that he asked if he could take his night vision goggles with him, which no, you can’t.

SPC Fuller: Right.

Glenn: The enemy would pay a lot for night vision.

SPC Fuller: Right.

Glenn: Any reason he was out, he left? I mean, can you think of any reason why he left his post?

SPC Fuller: I just don’t think he cared for America anymore. I think his agenda was to help those people, just like what his father was stating about wanting to help the Afghans a little bit more.

Glenn: Okay, help me out on this because I heard his dad. And I want to give his dad the benefit of the doubt. I mean, you went over to protect America, but also you don’t have anything against the Afghanis.

SPC Fuller: Not at all.

Glenn: Right.

SPC Fuller: They were very cool to me.

Glenn: Right, you want to help them too. Why do you interpret what dad said as anti-American?

SPC Fuller: I don’t know, it seemed a little strange. It seemed a little strange to me.

Glenn: Now, he leaves the base, and you guys have to go out and try to find him.

SPC Fuller: Yes, sir.

Glenn: What happened there?

SPC Fuller: When he had left the base, the next day there was already people going out to search for him, different platoons from different companies out of different battalions. They were already going on this thing called dust off, so when somebody either gets captured or goes missing, we start sending out patrols. Helicopters will go out and look for them.

Our platoon was going to be the next one to go out, and that was on July 3. And our bird got scratched to go look for him. Luckily it did, because the next day our outpost was almost overrun by the Taliban on July 4, so luckily we didn’t go. So I didn’t get to go on that mission to go look for him because we were getting overrun.

Glenn: And you say that the Taliban had information that they shouldn’t have had, that you think that he gave them.

SPC Fuller: Yes. To that point, whenever he had left the base, right after he had left, we started getting hit in spots that we didn’t normally get hit in because we’ve got a thing called POO sites, which are point of origin sites, and so we’ll know at some points where we get attacked from so we stay away from those areas. The areas that we trained with to go on certain areas, we started getting attacked on those areas. IEDs were placed strategically on the routes of trucks where we knew we would be going to hit those certain spots, stuff that the Taliban shouldn’t know about. Ambushes, we were getting hit from.

Glenn: Okay, so playing devil’s advocate again, what makes you think that he wasn’t tortured and gave all that information up through torture?

SPC Fuller: He could have, absolutely. He could have went over there with his best intentions, thinking that hey, I’m here to help you, and the Taliban said, you know, yes you will, and they still could have tortured him for that stuff.

Glenn: What’s your gut say? I mean, you drove in. I talked to you this morning. We asked you, “Can you come to the studios?” And you got here right away. And when I first saw you before we went on the air, you said a lot of us are, this has been eating you alive.

SPC Fuller: We got told from a higher up that was in charge of the brigade not to talk about it, but we didn’t –

Glenn: Back then?

SPC Fuller: Yes, sir. In OEF 9 through 10 or Operation Enduring Freedom 9 through 10, we were told to keep it on the quiet, on the DL, and from that point on, they were telling his family that he was a POW, telling the media he was a POW, and that was not the case.

Glenn: How does it make you feel, the president just…I’m not a soldier obviously, but I know enough, and I know people like Marcus Luttrell who have actually been held. And there’s no way Marcus Luttrell would want the president to negotiate for five really bad guys.

SPC Fuller: I wouldn’t allow it, even if it was myself, no way.

Glenn: Thanks a lot, Josh.

SPC Fuller: Yes, sir.

Glenn: Appreciate it. Thank you.

Where were Rachel Maddow's tears for immigrant children in 2014?

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I think we can all agree, both on the Left and the Right, that children who have been caught up in illegal immigration is an awful situation. But apparently what no one can agree on is when it matters to them. This past weekend, it suddenly — and even a little magically — began to matter to the Left. Seemingly out of nowhere, they all collectively realized this was a problem and all rushed to blame the Trump administration.

Here's Rachel Maddow yesterday:

Rachel Maddow chokes up and cries on air as she struggles to deliver news that migrant babies and toddlers have been sent to "tender age" shelters pic.twitter.com/O6crm8cvyR
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 20, 2018

I seem to remember getting mocked by the Left for showing emotion on TV, but I'll give her a pass here. This is an emotional situation. But this is what I can't give her a pass on: where the heck was this outrage and emotion back in 2014? Because the same situation going on today — that stuff Maddow and the rest of the Left have only just now woken up to — was going on back in July 2014! And it was arguably worse back then.

I practically begged and pleaded for people to wake up to what was going on. We had to shed light on how our immigration system was being manipulated by people breaking our laws, and they were using kids as pawns to get it done. But unlike the gusto the Left is using now to report this story, let's take a look at what Rachel Maddow thought was more important back in 2014.

On July 1, 2014, Maddow opened her show with a riveting monologue on how President Obama was hosting a World Cup viewing party. That's hard-hitting stuff right there.

On July 2, 2014, Maddow actually acknowledged kids were at the border, but she referenced Health and Human Services only briefly and completely rushed through what was actually happening to these kids. She made a vague statement about a "policy" stating where kids were being taken after their arrival. She also blamed Congress for not acting.

See any difference in reporting there from today? That "policy" she referenced has suddenly become Trump's "new" policy, and it isn't Congress's fault… it's all on the President.

She goes on throughout the week.

On July 7, 2014, her top story was something on the Koch brothers. Immigration was only briefly mentioned at the end of the show. This trend continued all the way through the week. I went to the border on July 19. Did she cover it? Nope. In fact, she didn't mention kids at the border for the rest of the month. NOT AT ALL.

Do you care about immigrant kids who have been caught in the middle of a broken immigration system or not?

Make up your minds. Is this an important issue or not? Do you care about immigrant kids who have been caught in the middle of a broken immigration system or not? Do you even care to fix it, or is this what it looks like — just another phony, addicted-to-outrage political stunt?

UPDATE: Here's how this discussion went on radio. Watch the video below.

Glenn gives Rachel Maddow the benefit of the doubt

Rachel Maddow broke down in tears live on her MSNBC show over border crisis.

Obama's tribute center in Chicago will cost taxpayers $200 million

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Progressives think the Obamas are a gift to the world. But their gift is apparently more of the metaphorical kind. It doesn't extend to helpful, tangible things like saving taxpayers money. Illinois has approved $224 million to pay for street and transportation upgrades around the planned site of the Obama Presidential Center. The catch is that Illinois taxpayers will have to cover $200 million of that cost. For a presidential museum.

Eight years of multiplying the national debt wasn't enough for Barack Obama. Old fleecing habits die hard. What's another $200 million here and there, especially for something as important as an Obama tribute center?

That's all well and good except Illinois can't even fund its pension system. The state has a $137 billion funding shortfall. That means every person in Illinois owes $11,000 for pensions, and there is no plan to fix the mess. Unless Illinois progressives have discovered a new kind of math, this doesn't really add up. You can't fund pensions, but you're going to figure out a way to milk the public for another $200 million to help cover the cost of a library?

It's hard to imagine who in their right mind would think this will be money well spent. Well, except for maybe Chicago Mayor and former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel who said, "The state's… investment in infrastructure improvements near the Obama Center on the South Side of Chicago is money well spent."

Some presidential overreach lasts longer than others.

The spending has already been signed into law, even though the Obama library has not received construction approval yet. Part of the holdup is that the proposed site is on public land in historic Jackson Park. That doesn't seem very progressive of the Obamas, but, you know, for certain presidents, you go above and beyond. It's just what you do. Some presidential overreach lasts longer than others.

Here's the thing about taxing the peasants so the king can build a fancy monument to himself – it's wrong. And completely unnecessary. The Obamas have the richest friends on the planet who could fund this project in their sleep. If the world simply must have a tricked-out Obama museum, then let private citizens take out their wallets voluntarily.

As the Mercury Museum proved this weekend, it is possible to build an exhibit with amazing artifacts that attracts a ton of visitors – and it cost taxpayers approximately zero dollars.

'The fool builds walls': China blasts Trump over tariffs

NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images

I can picture it now: Thousands of years ago, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, standing before hordes of his followers, in the Qin Dynasty, with a bright red bamboo hat on, and chanting, "Build that wall!"

It took a couple centuries to build the thing, but it got built. And it has been carefully maintained over the last 2,000 years, but, today, the Great Wall of China is so massive that astronauts can see it during good weather conditions from the lower part of low Earth orbit. The wall boasts over 3,000 miles of towers and brick embankments, with over 1,200 miles of natural defensive barriers. It's worth mentioning that the Chinese government is also exceptionally good at imposing digital walls, so much so that China ranks worst in the world for internet freedom.

So it's a little strange to hear an editorial run by a major news network in China criticized President Trump for his proposal to build a large wall along the southern border of America.

"Following the path of expanding and opening up is China's best response to the trade dispute between China and the United States, and is also the responsibility that major countries should have to the world," the author wrote. "The wise man builds bridges, the fool builds walls."

Similarly, the Pope told reporters in 2016, "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel."

Don't throw stones at people who want to build walls when you live in place surrounded by walls.

If you've been to the Vatican, you know that it is surrounded by enormous walls. The same goes for all the celebrities who live in heavily walled compounds—a safety measure—but who have also vehemently criticized President Trump's plans to build a wall.

You know the adage: "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones at other people's glass houses." Perhaps the phrase needs an update: Don't throw stones at people who want to build walls when you live in place surrounded by walls.

Pope Francis compares abortion for birth defects to Nazi eugenics

TIZIANA FABI/AFP/Getty Images

An immaculate Nazi doctor hovers over newborn. He probes and sneers at it. "Take it away," he says. This is the very real process that Nazi doctors undertook during the era of Nazi Germany: Nazi eugenics, the studious, sterile search to find children who would define a pure breed for the German lineage. The Übermensch.

During a speech to a delegation of Italy's Family Association in Rome on Saturday, Pope Francis referred to this cruel Nazi practice, which he used as a comparison to the increasingly popular process throughout Europe of "ending" birth defects, by offering abortions to women who have babies with chromosomal defects.

Here are two passages from the Pope's remarks:

I have heard that it's fashionable, or at least usual, that when in the first months of pregnancy they do studies to see if the child is healthy or has something, the first offer is: let's send it away.

And:

I say this with pain. In the last century the whole world was scandalized about what the Nazis did to purify the race. Today we do the same, but now with white gloves.

When CNN got the quote, and it shocked them so much that they had to verify the quote with the Vatican—in other words, it didn't fit the usual narrative.

It didn't fit the usual narrative.

The Pope also addressed claims that he has dedicated himself to LGBTQ causes:

Today, it is hard to say this, we speak of "diversified" families: different types of families. It is true that the word "family" is an analogical word, because we speak of the "family" of stars, family" of trees, "family" of animals ... it is an analogical word. But the human family in the image of God, man and woman, is the only one. It is the only one. A man and woman can be non-believers: but if they love each other and unite in marriage, they are in the image of God even if they don't believe.

The media have largely seen Pope Francis as the cool Pope, as the Obama of Catholicism. It'll be interesting to see how abruptly and severely that perspective changes.

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