American Cipher

December 15, 2018
Afghanistan war veteran Farwell and Newsweek and Harper's contributor Ames combine to investigate the high-profile military crimes of Bowe Bergdahl.Born to a loving rural Idaho family in 1986, Bergdahl, from a young age, demonstrated a puzzling, sometimes-clashing mixture of character attributes: useful personal skills vs. restlessness; kindness to others vs. self-centeredness; a desire to be accepted vs. hermitlike tendencies. As a teenager, he left Idaho to join the Coast Guard but could not cope psychologically and left in less than a month. Two years later, the Army, desperate for soldiers to staff invasions of nations harboring alleged terrorists, accepted Bergdahl as a combat trainee despite knowledge of his Coast Guard discharge. Dispatched to a lethal Afghan war zone in May 2009, Bergdahl quickly questioned the purpose of U.S. military involvement, found many of his commanding officers to be insufferable, and sought to use whatever moments he could carve out to show civilians the human side of American soldiers. The authors show unequivocally that Bergdahl planned to walk away from his remote military post into forbidden, life-threatening territory. After his capture by Islamic terrorists, during five years of imprisonment at undisclosed locations across the border of Pakistan, every moment in Bergdahl's existence became fodder for controversy at an international level. The authors present compelling, convincing evidence that addresses each specific controversial element: Was Bergdahl planning to become an enemy combatant? Was he actually tortured? Why did the U.S. military and government lie to the public about some of the details surrounding his capture? Did the U.S. government properly handle the negotiations for his release? Did he deserve a court-martial that would have landed him in prison until death? Throughout this twisting saga, readers will also receive detailed portraits of Bergdahl's parents, rural Idaho, pointless foreign incursions by the American government, and much more.An unsettling and riveting book filled with the mysteries of human nature.

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In 2009, Bowe Bergdahl deserted his army observation post in Afghanistan with the intention of walking to a nearby base to publicize the flaws of the war. He was soon captured by the Taliban, imprisoned, and tortured for five years in nearby Pakistan, until in 2014, President Barack Obama negotiated his release in exchange for five Taliban prisoners. Farwell, a freelance author whose army service included 16 months in Afghanistan, and Ames (contributor, Newsweek; Harper's) delve deeply into Bergdahl's complex relationship with his parents, along with his psychological disorders. The authors portray Bergdahl as collateral damage, victimized by the media; military, defense, and intelligence agencies; and politicians. Dense accounts of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have benefited from a glossary of names, dates, and events, but the details of Bergdahl's court-martial trial are engrossing, eliciting sympathy for his life with schizotypal personality disorder. VERDICT The authors raise important questions about the psychological fitness of servicemen and -women and the diminishing chances for fair trials and treatment in a nation as polarized as ours today. This will resonate with readers gripped by C.J. Chivers's The Fighters: Americans in Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.--Karl Helicher, formerly with Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA

Starred review from February 1, 2019
The U.S. military had been fighting in Afghanistan for almost eight years before Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, for unclear reasons, walked away from his post and was taken prisoner by the Taliban. Another five years passed before he returned home. Farwell and Ames recount the complete Bergdahl saga and much of the sorry tale of America's Afghanistan involvement. They move effortlessly between Bergdahl's life (friends and family, the reasons behind his actions, and his ordeal at the hands of the enemy) and the larger picture of the war and the American political divisions over it. Along the way, they profile a storied cast of characters?from those who use or exploit the troubled young man to those who seek to understand him?and tell his father's journey?from being a strict disciplinarian to a devoted guardian willing to sacrifice everything for his son. Farwell and Ames make a great case for the continuum of history, depicting Afghanistan as a graveyard of empires in which the U.S. is the latest victim of a military quagmire and showing how one soldier's actions can polarize an entire nation. American Cipher sets the record straight on a tragic subject and will strongly appeal to a wide audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)