According to one soldier, there was a cover-up attempt by the Obama administration involving disgraced Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl who recently pleaded guilty to the desertion of his unit while in Afghanistan in 2009.

Writing or The Baltimore Sun, U.S. Army Captain Chase Spears said he served as the public affairs officer for Sergeant Bergdahl’s unit. Spears said he’s very familiar with Bergdahl’s former unit.

Spears said his job was to know anything and everything there was to know about the unit, yet the unit spokesman said getting the facts on the Bergdahl story was far too difficult.

The most basic tenet of my job as the unit spokesman was to be knowledgeable on all critical facts pertaining to the brigade. The Bergdahl story was the biggest annual recurring news event reflecting one of our soldiers. Yet, it took months for me to convince a leader to brief me on the facts associated with it.

Spears went on to say that after Bergdahl’s desertion, his fellow soldiers who knew the circumstances as to Bergdahl’s desertion were “forced to sign nondisclosure agreements.” His unit knew the truth, but they were forced to stay quiet out of fear of reprisal.

“Though it was common knowledge inside the unit that Sergeant Bergdahl had deserted, the Army allowed the myth to perpetuate that he might have fallen behind on a patrol,” wrote Spears. “Soldiers who knew the truth were afraid to speak up, out of fear that they would be punished.”

“The truth about Sergeant Bergdahl was suppressed at the cost of their peace of mind,” he added.

Spears wrote that noting about the Bergdahl smelled right. This includes Bergdahl’s return, which just happened to come at a time when the Obama administration’s treatment of the military was being viewed at an all-time low.

In late 2014, the Obama administration was reeling from growing national outrage over proof that veterans were dying because of mismanagement at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Word of the Bergdahl rescue conveniently changed the news cycle’s focus. Sergeant Bergdahl was rescued under the pretense that his health was deteriorating to a critical level. He made the trip back to the U.S. on his own feet, and no serious health issues have since been reported.

Spears went on to call the entire show by the Obama administration “a well-orchestrated public relations campaign” that conveniently changed the news cycle in Obama’s favor.

While Spears will leave what happens to Bergdahl up to the military judge — a sentence will be passed Wednesday — he believes the Department of Defense owed the public an explanation to the American people, especially to the families of the soldiers who lost their lives to find Bergdahl, as well as those in his unit who carried the truth with them for so long.

The power of final disposition lies with a military judge. Regardless of what the military court decides, the Department of Defense owes it to the public, the families of soldiers who lost their lives trying to rescue Sergeant Bergdahl, and those soldiers who have carried his burden since 2009, a full report on his actions in Afghanistan’s Paktika Province on June 30, 2009.