HAILEY, Idaho – When Sherry Horton first saw video footage last week of Bowe Bergdahl being released by the Taliban, she was sure something was wrong.
She would know: Horton was the Army sergeant’s ballet instructor 10 years ago and then his roommate for three years before Bergdahl, 28, left to join the Army in 2008. He was captured in 2009, prompting a five-year vigil by Horton and others in his bucolic Western hometown.
“He looked shaky on his feet to someone who was so aware of his gait and movement, but it was good to see him up and walking,” Horton says.
Bergdahl remains in Germany as he undergoes various medical and psychological evaluations. Reports suggesting that he was abused while in captivity would support the Obama administration’s repeated claim that time was of the essence in securing the Idaho’s soldier’s release.
Horton smiles easily when recalling her old friend. But she hasn’t had much reason to smile of late.
Initially, the news of Bergdahl’s release May 31 found her celebrating with other locals here at her wine bar, diVine. She granted interviews, “just trying to tell people about the Bowe we remember, not the Bowe now. But it backfired on us.”
A few days later she and others saw the national mood darken as media reports focused on how the release was secured by an exchange for five top Taliban prisoners. Then claims surfaced charging Bergdahl was a deserter who jeopardized soldiers’ lives.
Soon the ballet school where Horton teaches five days a week found crudely critical comments on its Facebook page, which was then taken down. Horton and other locals prominent in the town’s Bring Bowe Home campaign stopped talking to media. But she agreed to speak with USA TODAY on Saturday to share recollections of her old roomie.
“He was a quiet observer, he’d be in the background, reading,” she says of the home-schooled Bergdahl, whose parents Bob and Jani live a few miles away and haven’t been seen in town in recent days. “But (Bowe) was also the first one with a one-liner in the crowd.”
She says Bergdahl never drank, and instead delighted in joining Horton in playing practical jokes. She describes one outing to hear a friend’s band play, where she and Bowe kept replacing an unsuspecting friend’s full beer can with an empty one. “He was just so much fun,” she says.
Bergdahl was raised a Calvinist by his parents and was known to dabble in Buddhism. He was drawn to structure, says Horton.
“I wasn’t surprised when he joined the Army. He liked the structure of ballet, so I think in that same way he liked the organizational appeal of the Army,” she says.
Horton says she read the late Rolling Stone writer Michael Hastings’ 2012 profile of Bergdahl, which suggested he might have simply abandoned his post and wandered into the surrounding Afghan desert. Her reaction was immediate. “It made me wonder, what did happen over there? Maybe something affected him while he was there, and maybe he needed some help,” she says.
War certainly has always had a powerful impact on those who wage it. By Horton’s account, nothing in her friend’s personality suggested anything other than a young man who wanted to serve his country through an organization that suited his personality.
She says although Bergdahl started dancing at 18, he was a quick study.
“He was a great student,” she says, noting that he had parts in the Atlanta transplant’s productions of The Nutcracker and The Wizard of Oz. “He’s strong, and has great inward focus. I hope that was helpful to him while dealing with (his five years in captivity).”
She pauses. Then shakes her head: “It’s just surreal to have something like this happen to someone you know.”
The affable wine bar owner says she can’t wait to be able to share updates with her onetime housemate once he returns, sharing stories about what’s happened in her life since he left this town of 7,000.
But when asked what she would say to him during that first reunion, Horton goes blank.
“I honestly don’t know,” she says. “We’ll just have to see.”
Article source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/08/bergdahl-roommate-sherry-horton-usa-today-interview/10182939/