By Debra Sweet

Last week, the Army charged Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, which could mean life in military prison.

The military admits Bergdahl was held in captivity, under threat of death, for 5 years, after reportedly leaving the base in Afghanistan where he was in a forward combat position. The Obama adminstration released 5 Afghan men from Guantanamo — none of which the government planned to prosecute — when Bergdahl was set free by the Haqqani Network on the Afghan border. Bergdahl’s father said, when his son was released in 2014, that his son was a prisoner of war and that “I don’t think anybody can relate to the prisoners in Guantanamo more than our family.”

Bergdahl’s military attorneys said today, “SGT Bergdahl has been vilified as a coward in the absence of a shred of evidence to support that description.”

It is the unjust occupation of Afghanistan by the U.S. — and those who ordered and commanded it — which should be on trial, not a foot soldier who may have been conflicted about fighting.