Former POW and Idaho native Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl tried to escape captivity 12 times in five years he says.
The New York Times news service reports Bergdahl first tried to escape a few hours after he was captured by a Taliban group in 2009.
Bergdahl’s lawyer provided a page-and-a-half narrative written by the 28-year-old soldier. It’s the first public glimpse into Bergdahl’s own experience as a prisoner of war.
Bergdahl says he was tortured, chained and kept in a metal cage for a time.
"I was kept in constant isolation during the entire five years, with little to no understanding of time, through periods of constant darkness, periods of constant light, and periods of completely random flickering of light, and absolutely no understanding of anything that was happening beyond the door I was held behind," the sergeant wrote. - New York Times news service
The Army announced Wednesday it is charging Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He could face life in prison.
Reuters reports Bergdahl's writings reveal he wasn't given much food and was in poor health during much of his time in captivity.
He said he was fed elbow noodles or rice and very little else. He received two bottles of water a day. The bottoms of his feet and other parts of his body were regularly beaten with a copper cable. Toward the end of his first year in captivity, Bergdahl said he managed to escape again. He got away from the building where he was being held and remained at large for about nine days in increasingly desperate circumstances. "Without food and only putrid water to drink, my body failed on top of a short mountain close to evening," he wrote. "After I came to in the dying gray light of the evening, I was found by a large Taliban searching group." "This is the time that my body reached the worst point of condition and for approximately the next year and a half I would not recover from it," he said. - Reuters
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