Bergdahl says he left base to expose ‘leadership failure’

US Army/ReutersUS Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held for almost five years by Afghan militants, was handed over to US Special Operations forces in Afghanistan on May 31, 2014 in a swap for five Taliban detainees.

Now playing on iTunes: season two of Serial, the most popular podcast of all time.

In those conversations, which were released today, Bergdahl explains why he was motivated to leave his base and jeopardize the safety of his platoon.

“I had this fantastic idea that I was going to prove to the world that I was the real thing, that I could be what it is that all those guys out there who go to the movies and watch those movies, they want to be that”.

Late on June 29, 2009, Bergdahl left the U.S. Army outpost he had been stationed at in eastern Afghanistan with nothing but “a disguise, a knife and some provisions”. “What was going on was a danger to the lives of the men of that company”, Bergdahl says on the podcast.

Comparing himself to the fictional rogue Central Intelligence Agency agent Jason Bourne, Bergdahl said his motive in leaving his post in 2009 was to prompt a search that would result in answers to his concerns about military leadership.

In a blog post, Koenig noted that the Bergdahl case has already been widely covered, but said “it spins out in so many unexpected directions” that people don’t know about.

“Suddenly, it really starts to sink in that I really did something bad”.

Military officials who interviewed Bergdahl at length said that he was tortured and kept in solitary while held by the Haqqani network, a group affiliated with the Taliban.

Mr Bergdahl was charged with desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy in March; if convicted, he could face life in prison.

The House Armed Services Committee released a report on Thursday that found the Obama administration “clearly broke the law” by failing to notify Congress of the transfer of the prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.

“I’m going, ‘Good grief, I’m in over my head, ‘” Bergdahl said in a “Serial” podcast released on Thursday.

Here are four other interesting tidbits from the first episode, titled “DUSTWUN” – or “duty status – whereabouts unknown”. But the requests have been denied, so Fidell said he was hopeful “Serial” would quiet some of Bergdahl’s critics and detractors – including 2016 Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

Whereas Season One focused on Adnan Syed and “a murder case few people had heard about”, the authors say Season Two tackles larger questions about the human condition and war by telling the story of USA solider Bowe Bergdahl.

“There’s times when I’d wake up and it’s just so dark, like I would wake up and not even remembering like what I was”, he said. “So it’s like you’re standing there screaming in your mind in this room”. Spending eight to ten hours on the Bergdahl case-Serial host Sarah Koenig told the New York Times that they hadn’t yet decided the number of episodes-should also provide a counterpoint to the minutes-long, soundbite-driven news cycle in which most Americans were first introduced to the story. The first episode of the podcast seems nearly sympathetic to Bergdahl, who some regarded as a deserter when he came back to the US.