FT272


On the last day of June 2009, a 23-year-old US Army private, Bowe Bergdahl, carrying only a compass and a bottle of water, disappeared from his unit’s forward operating base in eastern Afghanistan.

Why and how he had done this wasn’t clear. But the risk that he would fall into the hands of the Taliban was obvious. As soon as his absence was discovered, senior US military officials at Bagram Airbase in Kabul sprang into action. They scoured the airwaves and the nearby terrain with the latest surveillance technology, sent out patrols to try to find Bergdahl, and even distributed leaflets to Afghans in the area, warning them to inform the army if they saw him.