Let THAT sink in… Plus…we have no clue where those 5 Taliban commanders are in the world, or do we?

As many as 90 Obama administration officials knew about plans to swap five captured Taliban leaders for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The National Defense Authorization Act requires Obama to inform Congress about a prisoner swap 30 days in advance.

Humm…

Only a handful of people knew about Saturday’s extraction, Hagel told reporters traveling with him.

“We couldn’t afford any leaks anywhere, for obvious reasons,” he said.

“We found an opportunity. We took that opportunity,” Hagel said later on Meet the Press. “I’ll stand by that decision.”

The Taliban handed Bergdahl over to special operations forces in eastern Afghanistan, and later in the day the detainees were flown from the Guantanamo detention center to Qatar.

Hagel said the special operations forces conducting the mission took every precaution, using intelligence gathering, surveillance, well-positioned security assets and a lot of helicopters to ensure that things did not go wrong.

***

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl told a military judge on Monday that he’s pleading guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.

“I understand that leaving was against the law,” Bergdahl said.

“At the time, I had no intention of causing search and recovery operations,” Bergdahl added, saying that now he does understand that his decision to walk off his remote post in Afghanistan in 2009 prompted efforts to find him.

Bergdahl, 31, is charged with endangering his comrades by walking away from his post. Despite his plea, the prosecution and defense have not agreed to a stipulation of facts in the case, according to one of his lawyers, Maj. Oren Gleich, which is an indication that they did not reach a deal to limit his punishment.

The misbehavior charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, while the desertion charge is punishable by up to five years. He appears to be hoping for leniency from the judge, Army Col. Jeffery R. Nance.

The guilty pleas bring the highly politicized saga closer to an end eight years after his disappearance in Afghanistan set off search missions by scores of his fellow service members. President Barack Obama was criticized by Republicans for the 2014 Taliban prisoner swap that brought Bergdahl home, while President Donald Trump harshly criticized Bergdahl on the campaign trail.

The serious wounds to service members who searched for Bergdahl are still expected to play a role in his sentencing. The guilty pleas allow him to avoid a trial, but he still faces a sentencing hearing that’s expected to start on Oct. 23. Bergdahl’s five years of captivity by the Taliban and its allies also will likely factor into what punishment he receives.

Bergdahl, who’s from Hailey, Idaho, previously chose to have his case heard by a judge alone, rather than a jury.

Legal scholars have said that several pretrial rulings against the defense have given prosecutors leverage to pursue stiff punishment against Bergdahl. Perhaps most significant was the judge’s decision in June to allow evidence of serious wounds to service members who searched for Bergdahl at the sentencing phase. The judge ruled that a Navy SEAL and an Army National Guard sergeant wouldn’t have wound up in separate firefights that left them wounded if they hadn’t been searching for Bergdahl.

The defense also was rebuffed in an effort to prove President Donald Trump had unfairly swayed the case with scathing criticism of Bergdahl, including suggestions of harsh punishment. The judge wrote in a February ruling that Trump’s campaign-trail comments were “disturbing and disappointing” but did not constitute unlawful command influence by the soon-to-be commander in chief.

Defense attorneys have acknowledged that Bergdahl walked off his base without authorization. Bergdahl himself told a general during a preliminary investigation that he left intending to cause alarm and draw attention to what he saw as problems with his unit. He was soon captured.

But the defense team has argued that Bergdahl can’t be held responsible for a long chain of events that included many decisions by others on how to conduct the searches.

The military probe of Bergdahl began soon after he was freed from captivity on May 31, 2014, in exchange for five Taliban prisoners. Facing Republican criticism, Obama noted that the U.S. doesn’t leave its service members behind.

Bergdahl has been assigned to desk duty at a Texas Army base while his case unfolds.

***

6 Died looking for Bergdahl:

 Staff Sergeant Clayton Bowen, 29, of San Antonio, Texas, and Private 1^st Class Morris Walker, 23, of Chapel Hill, N.C., were killed by a roadside bomb in Paktika province on Aug. 18, 2009, while trying to find Bergdahl. Like Bergdahl, they were part of the 4^th BCT from Fort Richardson, Alaska.

Bowen’s mother last heard from her son the night before he died. “Clay called me around midnight to tell me I

wouldn’t hear from him for a few days,” she said. She never heard from him again, although she can still hear his voice in the two CDs he recorded with the 82nd Airborne All-American Chorus. “He was the only bass in the group,” she said, “so you could always hear him.”

“What I think of first when I think of Morris is his smile because he was always smiling,” his junior-high teacher,

Wanda Bordone, told the Associated Press after he died. “He had a great sense of humor, lots of friends.”

Staff Sergeant Kurt Curtiss, 27, of Murray, Utah, died Aug. 26 in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he was shot while his unit was supporting Afghan security forces during an enemy attack. Like Bergdahl, Bowen and Walker, he was part of the 4^th BCT.

“I’ll never forget you Kurt,” Adrian Ramirez a fellow soldier from Fort Richardson, posted on a memorial site. “You were my first team leader from the beginning and my squad leader to the end. I will miss you and all the memories I have shared with you.”

2nd Lieutenant Darryn Andrews, 34, of Dallas, Texas, died Sept. 4 in Paktika Province when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device and a rocket-propelled grenade. Like Bergdahl, Bowen, Walker and Curtiss, Andrews was part of the 4^th BCT.

“We grew up with an enormous amount of pride for our nation,” Andrews’ mother, Sondra, told the Amarillo Globe-News. That was understandable: his father. grandfather and uncle had served in uniform. “We passed it on to our children, never thinking we would pay the ultimate sacrifice.”

Staff Sergeant Michael Murphrey, 25, of Snyder, Texas, died Sept. 6 in Paktika province after being wounded by an IED. Like Bergdahl, Bowen, Walker, Curtiss and Andrews, Murphrey was part of the 4^th BCT.

“On his 17th birthday his family took him skydiving and after that,” his obituary read, “he decided he wanted to be an Army paratrooper.”

On Sept. 4, 2009, Private 1^st Class Matthew Martinek, 20, of DeKalb, Ill., was seriously wounded in Paktika province when Taliban forces attacked his vehicle with an improvided explosive device, a rocket-propelled grenade and small-arms fire.

The U.S. military rushed him to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany—the same medical facility where Bergdahl is now being treated.

Bergdahl is expected to fly home to the U.S. soon for additional care and counseling.

Martinek never got that chance. He died a week after the attack—on Sept. 11.

Martinek “tried not to talk too much about what he was doing, but he said he liked helping people,” his brother, Travis Wright, told the AP.

Like Bergdahl, Bowen, Walker, Curtiss, Andrews and Murphrey, Martinek was part of the 4^th BCT.

The diversion of these men and their units to the hunt for Bergdahl thinned the ranks of U.S. troops elsewhere in the region, contributing to several more American KIAs, U.S. soldiers who were there at the time believe.

Military justice can be swift and merciless, although that appears unlikely in this case. But the past cannot be erased, and it’s that legacy that gives the troops involved a markedly different view of Bergdahl and his rescue than that of most Americans sitting at home, paying scant attention to the nation’s only soldier missing in action in Afghanistan until Saturday.

The reason, for anyone who has been in combat, is pretty simple. Soldiers never forget. Civilians rarely remember.