Bowe Bergdahl arraigned at North Carolina Army base

He will be arraigned by a military judge at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Bergdahl, wearing a blue dress uniform, said little, offering “Yes, sir” or “No, sir” answers to the judge’s questions or allowing his lawyer to speak on his behalf. He mostly sat still in his chair and walked with his head down as he left the courtroom.

Fidell, who was not present at the arraignment, previously criticized the decision by Gen. Robert Abrams, commander of Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, to send his client to a general court-martial. If Bergdahl is convicted of misbehavior before the enemy, he could face a life sentence, while the desertion charge carries a maximum five-year sentence.

In episode one, Weirick and Nate weigh in on Bergdahl’s motivations for launching the DUSTWUN in June 2009 when he walked off base in Paktika province, Afghanistan. The Pentagon’s inspector general on December 9, 2015, has told a House panel investigating the five Taliban Guantanamo Bay detainees released in exchange for Bergdahl that it found no evidence that a ransom was ever attempted or paid to secure the soldier’s release.

The next hearing was scheduled for January 12. The move touched off a firestorm of criticism, with some in Congress accusing President Barack Obama of jeopardizing the safety of the country with the exchange. For a time, it looked as if Bergdahl’s case was just too ambiguous for the military to successfully prosecute in such a venue: In October, Bergdahl’s legal team said that the military officer in charge of a preliminary hearing in the case recommended his case be concluded without jail time or a punitive discharge from the military.

The exact circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance in 2009 are cloaked in mystery, and his high-profile story is now the subject of the second series of the podcast Serial. Earlier this month, the Army announced he would face the more serious general court-martial. “I was capable of being what I appeared to be”, Bergdahl said.

Three weeks after he was captured by the Taliban, the group released a 28-minute video that shows Bergdahl pleading for his release.

“I was trying to prove to myself, I was trying to prove to the world, to anybody who used to know me…”

The possibility that he might face a light punishment has angered many in the military, who say his fellow soldiers took considerable risk when they went searching for him in enemy territory.