Two sergeants, two very different stories
In an article for Fox News, journalist Joseph Kolb compares the situations of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi. Tahmooressi, a former Marine who suffers from PTSD, mistakenly drove across the Mexican border with registered guns, according to the report by Fox. He is now being held in a Mexican prison where he has been for sixty-five days. Berghdahl, on the other hand, is suspected to have deserted the Army only to fall into the hands of the Taliban.
Due to the great lengths that the President went to free Sgt. Bergdahl, who even his fellow soldiers say is a deserter at best, many are questioning why the President will not make a simple phone call to the Mexican government to free Sgt. Tahmooressi. When the President announced on Saturday in a Rose Garden news conference that five Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay would be exchanged for Sgt. Bergdahl, it angered many, as it went against a “long-standing policy of not bargaining with terrorists,” according to Fox.
“He wasn’t forgotten by his country, because the United States of America does not ever leave our men and women in uniform behind,” Obama said. Well then why are we “forgetting” Sgt. Tahmooressi? While Sgt. Tahmooressi is not a POW, he served two tours in Afghanistan. “Friends who have visited him in prison say he has been tortured and threatened with rape and death,” said Fox.
According to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif), there were other options in the Bergdahl situation “that neither involved the Taliban nor prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay…meanwhile…Andrew Tahmooressi is still stuck in a Mexican jail for making a wrong turn and the only thing grabbing the president’s attention so far is an online petition that forces him to respond.”
