The United States has fallen into fighting these fucked-up perpetual wars of attrition and we send soldiers back out three, four, five tours. Nobody should be surprised, but everyone should be disgusted, that our young men come back busted up mentally, physically or not at all, while the rest of us give our politicians a pass or wave the flag. I see Bergdahl as a victim of US hubris just as surely as every kid who has had to face these horrors in the field and who will be haunted by them for the rest of their lives.

There is no glory in it, only sometimes necessity. We need to continually question that necessity and hold our leaders accountable for the fact that we have soldiers everywhere doing things that may or may not be in our best interests or theirs.