Footage of Private First Class Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23.
The AP reports:
The soldier said the date is July 14. He says he was captured when he lagged behind on a patrol.
He is interviewed in English by his captors, and he is asked his views on the war, which he calls extremely hard, his desire to learn more about Islam and the morale of American soldiers, which he said was low.
Asked how he was doing, the soldier said on the video:
"Well I'm scared, scared I won't be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner."
He begins to answer questions in a matter-of-fact and sober voice, occasionally facing the camera, looking down and sometimes looking to the questioner on his left.
He later chokes up when discussing his family and his hope to marry his girlfriend.
"I have my girlfriend, who is hoping to marry," he said. "I have a very, very good family that I love back home in America. And I miss them every day when I'm gone. I miss them and I'm afraid that I might not ever see them again and that I'll never be able to tell them that I love them again and I'll never be able to hug them."
He is also prompted his interrogators to give a message to the American people.
"To my fellow Americans who have loved ones over here, who know what it's like to miss them, you have the power to make our government bring them home," he said. "Please, please bring us home so that we can be back where we belong and not over here, wasting our time and our lives and our precious life that we could be using back in our own country. Please bring us home. It is America and American people who have that power."
The video is not a continuous recording — it appears to stop and start during the questioning.
Bergdahl is a United States soldier who was captured by Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon has identified the American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured.
The Defense Department said in a statement Sunday that the soldier is Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, of Ketchum, Idaho. The statement also says his status is now classified as missing-captured, rather than whereabouts unknown.
In a video posted online by the Taliban on Saturday, he's heard saying he's "scared I won't be able to go home."
Before the Pentagon released Bergdahl's identity, two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the 28-minute video was the captured soldier.
The military said on July 2 that a U.S. soldier had disappeared after walking off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three Afghan counterparts and was believed to have been taken prisoner.
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