Obama's Definition of a Good Soldier

Bergdahl Being Released To Active Duty As Early As Today --- Bergdahl Returned To Duty, “He’s A Normal Soldier Now”

WASHINGTON — Six weeks after being released from five years in Taliban captivity, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is expected to return to life as a regular Army soldier as early as Monday, Defense Department officials said late Sunday. 

Sergeant Bergdahl has finished undergoing therapy and counseling at an Army hospital in San Antonio, and will assume a job at the Army North headquarters at the same base, Fort Sam Houston, the officials said. 

He is also expected to meet with Maj. Gen. Kenneth R. Dahl, the officer who is investigating the circumstances of Sergeant Bergdahl’s disappearance from his outpost in Afghanistan in 2009. 

Sergeant Bergdahl’s transfer from the therapy phase to a regular soldier’s job is part of his reintegration into Army life, officials said. He will live in barracks and have two other soldiers help him readjust. 

The sergeant has been an outpatient at the hospital for about three weeks, during which time he continued to participate in debriefings about his time as a Taliban prisoner. He was released six weeks ago in exchange for five senior Taliban detainees. 

Last Thursday, Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who heads the Armed Services Committee, released letters from each of the Joint Chiefs of Staff supporting the repatriation of Sergeant Bergdahl, a rebuttal to critics who said the swap should not have been made. 

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Bowe Bergdahl, the Army sergeant who spent nearly five years as a Taliban captive in Afghanistan, was returned to regular duty Monday with a desk job that makes him available to Army investigators for questioning about his disappearance in 2009. 

In a brief statement, the Army said Bergdahl is now assigned to U.S. Army North at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston in Texas, the same base where he has been decompressing and recuperating from the effects of his lengthy captivity. 

His exact administrative duties were not immediately disclosed, but a Pentagon spokesman, Army Col. Steve Warren, said Bergdahl is not restricted in any way. “He is a normal soldier now,” Warren said. 

The Army said that in his assignment to U.S. Army North he “can contribute to the mission,” which is focused on homeland defense. It said the Army investigation into the circumstances of his disappearance and capture by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan in June 2009 will continue.