The whole Berghdal story is bizarre.
Even though there were already suspicions the guy had deserted, Obama goes ahead and has a rose garden ceremony with his parents celebrating his rescue. If that wasn't disgusting enough, we now have this travesty of a sentence.
But the thing was, when Obama praised the guy, and arranged his rescue, the Army listed him as a POW, promoted him to Sergeant in captivity, and outright lied about how he was captured.
In short, they were putting the best spin on the story, just like they did when Tillman was killed by friendly fire or the rescue of Jessica Lynch turned out to be just picking her up at the Hospital.
Once he became another reason for the batshit crazy right to hate on Obama, though, a bunch of guys who got out of military service for bone spurs or cysts on the ass were quick to chime in.