'He willingly deserted': Freed POW's former platoon-mates call for him to face COURT-MARTIAL as they reveal how he left post. Army made comrades sign gagging orders

Specialist Cody Full, 25, says Bowe Bergdahl is 'a deserter at best, and a traitor at worst'

Specialist Gerald Sutton, 31, calls the newly rescued infantryman's decision to desert his unit 'premeditated'

Both men, who served with Bergdahl in Afghanistan, say he should be hauled into a military court to face the music

'He's not a hero. He's not a good example,' Full told MailOnline



'This might be kinda severe,' Sutton said, 'but for desertion in time of war, the penalty can be up to death'

Bergdahl's life has been under a microscope, with most accounts describing a soft-hearted infantryman who cared more for the Afghani people than he did for his Army mission

But Full says his odd demeanor also had a more worrisome side: Bergdahl asked one Army squad leader if he would be allowed to wear the face of his first Taliban 'kill' as a mask

Other platoon-mates of Bergdahl have told how they were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements by the army after he was captured



Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl appeared in an April 2010 Taliban-released video wearing an Army jacket and a full beard, 10 months after deserting his post and walking, unarmed, into the Afghanistan hills

Two former comrades of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl have confirmed to MailOnline that their former platoon-mate walked away from his post in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009 with the intention of reneging on his military oath.



'I'm positive that he's a deserter, and that it was all premeditated,' said Gerald Sutton, a 31-year-old Michigan college student who left the military in September 2012 and said he was 'a good friend' of Bergdahl when they were deployed to the Middle East.



A Pentagon investigation established in 2010 that on that Tuesday, Bergdahl abandoned his platoon in a war zone near the Pakistan border while serving with the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.

The Idaho native's disappearance led to an all-hands-on-deck manhunt in Afghanistan's Paktika Province, as thousands of troops were diverted to rescue a man who left the safety of his outpost with his eyes open.

'He wasn't out on some patrol one day and got captured by the Taliban, and nobody smuggled him off of the base,' explained Cody Full, a 25-year-old former infantryman who spoke with MailOnline from Houston, Texas.

Full, too, was in Bergdahl's unit. And he's anguished at the thought that at least six soldiers died on missions to find him in the early, frantic months after he went missing.

'This soldier knew what he was doing,' Full said. 'He left us. He willingly and premeditatedly deserted his comrades. And he put his team, his squad, his platoon, his company, and thousands of other American soldiers in Afghanistan at a very high risk trying to find him.'

'If he didn't desert, and he was still in the platoon, those soldiers would not have been in the locations where they were killed ... because they wouldn't have been out there looking for him.'

Sutton said he 'felt like I was in immediate danger all the time' after Bergdahl left. 'All of us did. We were sent out for about 30 to 35 days straight looking for him.'

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Cody Full (L) and Gerald Sutton (R) spent Monday on a whirlwind media tour pressing journalists to think twice before they hail Bowe Bergdahl as a hero

Gerald Sutton, who served in the infantry unit that Bowe Bergdahl deserted, told MailOnline that 'I'm positive that he's a deserter, and that it was all premeditated'

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'And there were plenty of other people. I mean, the complete 501st [Infantry Regiment] was pulled out of there to search.'

'It was a betrayal to me, because he was my – I considered him a pretty good friend,' Sutton said.



'So it's always been, I've always wanted to ask him, face-to-face, "Why did you do it, man?"

This startling development comes as it was claimed that soldiers in Berghdal's platoon were made to sign a highly unusual non disclosure agreement covering his disappearance in an apparent attempt to cover-up what happened.



Bergdahl spent nearly five years on one side or the other of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, secreted away by militants loyal to the Haqqani network, an al-Qaeda-related insurgent group that's allied with the Taliban.



His life before and during his military enlistment has been under a high-powered microscope since President Barack Obama announced on Saturday that he had been handed over to U.S. Special Forces as part of a deal to release five high-value Taliban terror targets held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Most accounts describe a soft-hearted Beetle Bailey-type, a former ballet-dancing infantryman who seemed incapable of developing the hard exterior necessary for survival in combat.



But Full described Bergdahl in a different way. The two met when they arrived to join their unit at Fort Richardson near Anchorage, Alaska.



'He seemed a little odd, you know?' he recalled. 'I was present when he first got to the unit in Alaska. One of the first questions he asked our squad leader was, "When I kill my first Taliban, can I wear his face as a mask?"'

'That's not really – yeah, he asked that of our squad leader. I was there,' Full said in a deliberate cadence.

'Statements like that? You know, it's not a normal thing to say.'

'And then there were times when he was very idealistic. Some of the stuff he said might have sounded smart inside his head at the time, but I was never inside his head,' Full mused.



'When I listened to him, I was like, "That just doesn't make much sense."'

Sutton remembered Bergdahl talking with him and a third soldier just a few days before he walked away.



'He was asking us what it would be like to get lost in the mountains ... and he asked me personally if I thought he could make it to China or India on foot.'

'At the time we thought he was joking.'



'We the Platoon': A White House petition to 'punish Bowe Bergdahl' for going AWOL and deserting the U.S. Army is demanding a 'trial by court martial,' and thousands signed in the first day

Cody Full told Fox News on Monday that Bergdahl 'did not serve the United States with honor'

Bergdahl is in Landstuhl, Germany, where intelligence officers are debriefing him and psychologists are assessing his fitness to return to the United States. The Pentagon says he is in stable condition, but officials have offered no clue about when he might come back – and where he will report.

Unlike Full and Sutton, who were honorably discharged from the military, Bergdahl's career has continued apace while he was in enemy hands. His back pay accrued. His automatic promotions clicked, with a scheduled elevation to Staff Sergeant coming this year.

But his two former compatriots agree that his next stop should be the stockade, followed by a trial.

'I think he should face a court-martial for desertion,' Sutton explained, 'because that's exactly what he did. It was premeditated.'

'I mean, all the other allegations and stuff about him collaborating with the enemy – that's really, really circumstantial and it's kinda stretching it. There's no hard evidence to support that at all. ... I just know that he deserted his post that day on June 30.'

Sutton said he would be satisfied with any outcome a panel of officers might reach.

'Whatever the tribunal, or whatever he faces, whatever judgment they pass will be – if they just decide to give him a black mark and give him a dishonorable discharge – then I still think he should face the music,' he said.

'Everyone is responsible for their own actions, and I just believe that he should at least face something. And even if he's found not guilty of it, at least he faced it.'



Full pressed the issue one step further.

'There should be a thorough investigation,' he said, even 'if it needs to involve a congressional committee to look at sealed files.'

'And I think that he needs to get a trial, and not some show trial.'

Bergdahl deserted his post at a time when his unit was a heavily armed comedy of errors, according to a June 2012 feature the late journalist Michael Hastings wrote for Rolling Stone magazine.



KILLED SEARCHING FOR BOWE BERGDAHL: Staff Sergeant Clayton Bowen, 29, (left) and Private First Class Morris Walker, 23, (right) were killed in an IED explosion on August 18, 2009.

Staff Sergeant Kurt Curtiss, (left) a 27-year-old father of two, who died in a firefighter on August 26, 2009. Staff Sergeant Michael Murphrey, 25, (right) was killed in an IED blast on September 5, 2009.

Second Lieutenant Darryn Andrews, 34, (left) and Private First Class Matthew Michael Martinek, 20, (right) died after a rocket-propelled grenade ambush on September 4, 2009.



Hastings cited emails from Bergdahl to his parents about a May 2009 mission that was plagued by one mechanical disaster after another. One $1.5 million specialized Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle was disabled by an improvised explosive device, and Bergdahl's unit was tasked with escorting a tow truck sent to retrieve it.

On the way to meet the truck, their own MRAP was knocked out by a second roadside IED.



Bergdahl wrote that he and others were left stranded in the mountains for four days, defending the wreckage from insurgents, while commanders debated whether to airlift engines and other parts up the mountain.

Some of that time, according to Hastings, was spent near a village that was controlled by Taliban forces.



Once the MRAPs were finally fixed and everyone began their descent out of the mountains, Hastings reported, a third IED stopped them in their tracks. 'It was at the point that the guys where [sic] beginning to climb into the trucks that the first RPG hit about 30m away from them,' Bergdahl's email reportedly recounted, 'and then the RPKs and the AKs began to splatter bullets on us, and all around us, the gunners where only able to see a few of them, and so where [sic] firing blindly the rest of the time, up into the trees and rocks.'

'The .50 went down on the first shot on the truck i was in, and i had to hand up my SAW for the gunner to use,' the email continued, describing a heavy machine gun and Bergdahl's own lighter 'squad automatic weapon.'

'I sat there and watched, there was nothing else I was allowed to do.'

Sutton said he read those accounts with suspicion. 'I read some of the emails, and the stuff that was published in the Rolling Stone,' he said. 'But nobody has really verified those.'

And no one died in the skirmish over the MRAPs.

Real or imagined, Bergdahl's disaffection with the military chain of command made him think about changing his circumstances.

Prisoner swap: Abdul Waq-Hasiq, left, and Norullah Noori, right, are to be freed from Guantanamo Bay Former combatants: The prisoners, including Khirullah Khairkhwa, left, and Mohammed Nabi, right, will remain in Qatar for at least next year as part of the terms of their release 'He was just really upset about our position and how things were,' Sutton told MailOnline, 'because we never went on the offensive one time. It was mostly like a reactionary force toward everything. We never shot first. It was always either return fire or escape.' Bergdahl seized a moment to disappear into the wilderness when he and a small contingent of soldiers were visiting a remote observation post where they had met several times with Afghan Army personnel. RELEASED: Mohammad Fazi is believed to have been at the command of a mass killing, and the United Nations has sought his prosecution for war crimes

But June 30 was to be their last visit to that 'primitive' location, Full said, and the entire platoon was told far in advance.

'When you go up there, different units go to different joint bases, and you patrol with the local force,' Full explained, 'whether it be the Afghan Army or Afghani police.'

'And then after awhile when they get the lay of the land, and they get everything set up, you turn it over to them. That's part of it. You teach them how to do things, and then you turn it over to them.'

'So this one time,' he recalled, 'they said to us, "You know, this is going to be the last time you're going out there."

'And that's when he started packing and shipping his stuff.'

Sutton remembered it the same way.

'About a week or two before he left he mailed some of his stuff home,' he said. 'including his Apple laptop. He sent that home to his parents.'

'That didn't seem suspicious to us at the time, but it made sense after the fact.'

'He left his weapon that day. The only thing he had with him was his diary – that none of us actually saw, so I have no idea what was in there – 2 MREs ['Meals Ready to Eat' rations], his knife, a bottle of water and his compass.'

Both men guided MailOnline through their memories of early Bergdahl sightings, of clergymen who had spotted him crawling through the grass and Afghan children who heard him ask for water.

But neither can explain what was going through their onetime brother-in-arms' mind.

'I would like to know. It would provide me with some closure,' said Full.

Bob Bergdahl (L), the father of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, has attracted attention for speaking Pashto and uttering phrases from the Quran

'But the fact of the matter is that in the military you sign your name and you take your oath, and you fulfill your orders given to you. You are part of something bigger than yourself.'

'We swore and upheld our oath, and he did not,' he said softly. 'He's a deserter at best, and a traitor at worst.'

'Of course, I wasn't there in the room when he was with [the] Haqqani [Network] or whatever group happened to have him, so I can't say what he said. But he's not a hero. He's not a good example.'



'I know what I signed up for,' Sutton echoed, 'and so did Bowe. He didn't live up to it.'

'Article 85 of the UCMJ states that – this might be kinda severe – but for desertion in time of war, the penalty can be up to death.'

The five Taliban terrorists released by the White House to ensure Bergdahl's safe return arrived in Qatar on Monday, greeted enthusiastically by a small group of supporters.



Mohammad Fazl, Khairullah Khairkhwa, Mullah Norullah Noori, Mohammed Nabi and Abdul Haq Wasiq were thought to be the most senior Afghans held at Guantanamo Bay; all were captured during America's military campaign in 2001.

According to Human Rights Watch, Fazl presided over the mass-killing of Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001 as the Taliban consolidated its control over the country.

Khairkhwa helped found the Taliban in 1994. U.S. government files name him as a close associate of both Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's 'supreme commander.'

He was also among the most powerful opium drug lords in western Afghanistan prior to his capture.



The Qatari emir has promised President Obama that the five men's movements will be restricted for one year.



Asked if it was a smart exchange for Bergdahl, Full didn't skip a beat.

'I guess he's an American, and I would want to bring Americans home,' he said.



'But no. I don't think trading five high-level terrorists for him would be cool.'

Other soldiers in Bergdahl's platoon have claimed they were forced to sign a highly unusual nondisclosure agreement covering his disappearance in an apparent attempt to cover up what happened.



Two soldiers who spoke to MailOnline said the letter was passed around by commanders to those close to Sgt. Bergdahl.



The ploy backfired, however, as a number of soldiers spoke out regardless in angry Facebook messages and media interviews.



But the irregular action by the military raises fresh and disturbing questions about attempts to control the flow of information about the incident.

Sgt. Evan Buetow, who fought in Sgt. Bergdahl's platoon, said: 'I never signed it. I know there were a couple of soldiers who were closer to Sgt. Bergdahl as friends. '



‘I know a couple of them signed the official nondisclosure letter. We did not have to sign an NDA for other missions.’



Others who have spoken out anonymously on the Facebook page ‘Boweisatraitor’ have also referred to such a letter.



Another soldier from Sgt. Bergdahl’s unit who is still in the military told MailOnline: 'The nondisclosure letters were handed around .'

‘Everyone signed them who was told to – they were just following orders.’

NDA letters are usually signed by soldiers who have security clearances or are working on sensitive missions.