This story gets more enraging by the hour.

Via CNN:

. . . Buetow was involved in the immediate search for Bergdahl, pushing a patrol into a nearby local village.

“Immediately as we left the base, two small boys walked up to us, and they told us that they saw an American crawling in the weeds by himself,” said the former Army sergeant. The search followed that lead, and others, for months.

“For 60 days or more, I remember, just straight, all we did was search for Bergdahl,” said Buetow, “essentially chasing a ghost because we never came up with anything.”

At least six soldiers were killed in subsequent searches for him, according to soldiers involved in those operations.

The Pentagon was not able to provide details on specific operations in which any soldiers were killed during that time were involved.

Buetow says even though those operations were not “directed missions” to search for Bergdahl, there was an underlying premise of acting on intelligence to find the missing soldier.

“The fact of the matter is, when those soldiers were killed, they would not have been where they were at if Bergdahl hadn’t left,” says Buetow. “Bergdahl leaving changed the mission.”

Many soldiers in Bergdahl’s platoon said attacks seemed to increase against the United States in Paktika province in the days and weeks following his disappearance.

“Following his disappearance, IEDs started going off directly under the trucks. They were getting perfect hits every time. Their ambushes were very calculated, very methodical,” said Buetow.

It was “very suspicious,” says Buetow, noting that Bergdahl knew sensitive information about the movement of U.S. trucks, the weaponry on those trucks, and how soldiers would react to attacks.