This season of the hit podcast “Serial” is investigating the mysterious disappearance, capture and release of embattled Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, and in this week’s episode, he describes what his Taliban captors did to him and asked him.
In an interview with filmmaker Mark Boal, Sgt. Bergdahl said he had been chained to a bed by the Taliban men who captured him and laid “spread-eagle on the bed and blindfolded” for months.
Mr. Boal, who wrote and co-produced “Zero Dark Thirty,” is currently working on a film about Sgt. Bergdahl’s capture and gave recordings of their phone conversations to “Serial” creator and host Sarah Koenig.
Sgt. Bergdahl said the guards who were charged with watching over him would get bored and shave his beard into shapes and taunt him with strange questions.
“They ask you, is Obama gay and sleeps with men?” he recalled.
Other guards asked him where U.S. military bases got their prostitutes, alcohol and drugs.
He said answering those kinds of questions was difficult because “if you show hesitation … they think they’re onto something,” but if he answered right away, then “they get extremely suspicious.”
Sgt. Bergdahl added the Taliban were infatuated with American sodas.
“They love Mountain Dew,” he said. “If you want to piss people off in that country, all you do is cut off their sugar supply.”
Sgt. Bergdahl is now facing a court-martial. Last week, he was arraigned on two charges, desertion and misbehavior before the enemy; the latter charge carries a sentence of life in prison.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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