A general court-martial for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked away from his unit in Afghanistan straight into Taliban captivity for five years, is appropriate. It will make the point in a way that no other proceeding could that a soldier’s duty is deadly serious.

Gen. Robert Abrams, chief of Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., last week overruled the recommendation of a hearing officer that Bergdahl be tried before a special court-martial, a lower court in the military system limited in the maximum sentence it can impose to one year in prison. Bergdahl thus is faced with a general court-martial which may impose the death penalty, which Bergdahl will not face.

An investigating officer reported that psychiatrists had concluded Bergdahl suffered from a mental defect. If this assertion becomes the basis for a defense, it is a general court-martial, nothing less, that should handle it.

Bergdahl faces two charges: desertion “with intent to shirk important or hazardous duty,” which carries a five-year sentence, and misbehavior before the enemy, which could bring life in prison. In a podcast interview, he already has admitted walking away from his post with the intent of reaching a higher level of command to which he could complain about poor leadership in his unit. (None of his comrades has seconded that complaint.) He said he wanted to be perceived as “the real thing,” that is, some kind of hero.

No real hero subjects hundreds of his fellow soldiers to a month of fruitless searching in hostile territory. Bergdahl’s offense was primarily against his colleagues. Years of research in several countries has shown that soldiers do not risk their lives for their flag or an ideology or some national interest, though they fight for those things, but rather not to let down their fellow soldiers. Bergdahl’s trial will serve notice to all members of the armed forces that the law will not let them down, and that?offenses are treated with due seriousness.