time in captivity describe his struggle to maintain his mental capacity. >> was he writing these letters under duress? almost absolutely. >> they let you communicate with your family because they want you to have hope. >> some of bergdahl's fellow former soldiers portrayed him as a deserter. >> none of us know what's going on in his head at the time. >> the real question is not whether or not he's going to get sent away to leavenworth but what kind of discharge will he receive. >> i think we ought to hold our peace until we find what the facts are. he will receive an honorable discharge or get something under less than honorable conditions. right now, we are awaiting a press conference at the brook army medical center in san antonio where bowe bergdahl arrived overnight, returning to the u.s. after nearly five years as a prisoner of the taliban. he touched down in texas in the early morning hours and we do

not yet have official confirmation that this is him. but we do know that bergdahl is set to begin the next phase of his reintegration process and eventually will be reunited with his parents. exactly when that will happen remains unclear. this morning, a spokesperson for the family released a statement reading quote, while the bergdahls are overjoyed that their son has returned to the united states, mr. and mrs. bergdahl do not intend to make any travel plans public. as they ask for continued privacy, questions remain about bergdahl's condition, the circumstances of his capture and the full impact of the trade that led to his rescue. military officials in san antonio are holding that news conference. let's listen in. >> today we are going to address your questions on the reintegration of sergeant bowe bergdahl who is now here at fort sam houston. our panel today includes the reintegration mission commander and commander of the u.s. army south, major general joseph p.disalvo. also colonel bradley poppin,

psychologist from the joint personnel recovery agency and from brook army medical center, dr. colonel reynold wolf. the scope of today's press conference is on reintegration activities here. questions about sergeant bergdahl's activities before and after reintegration will be addressed by the department of the army and the department of defense. major general disalvo will make a brief opening statement, then we will go to q & a for approximately 30 minutes. >> the united states military is proud that we have honored the covenant we hold with all soldiers, sailors, airmen, marine and coast guardmen, never leaving a comrade behind. today, we have one back in the united states. as you are aware, sergeant

bergdahl was returned to u.s. control on may 31st. he was transported to landstuhl regional medical center in germany to begin his decompression process. he remained in landstuhl for 12 days and once his medical providers felt he was able to travel, our army south reintegration team accompanied him here to san antonio military medical center. during his stay here, sergeant bergdahl will participate in reintegration, a process that will aim to equip sergeant bergdahl with the necessary tools to regain appropriate levels of physical and emotional stability to effectively resume normal activities with minimal physical and emotional complications. currently, sergeant bergdahl is in stable condition and will work daily with medical and mental health professionals. i must emphasize how important it is for everyone to respect sergeant bergdahl's and his family's privacy as they go through this process. the reintegration of sergeant bergdahl is a comprehensive

process. there is no set timeline for any phase of reintegration. each phase that sergeant bergdahl participates in is a custom event, fitted to his individual circumstances. this reintegration process is done at joint base san antonio fort sam houston because the department of defense assigned the department of the army the lead and the department of the army then tasked u.s. army south with the lead for phase three reintegration. u.s. army south has received tremendous support from the department of the defense as well as my immediate headquarters, united states southern command and also u.s. european command and united states central command, who were lead for phase one, the initial recovery, and phase two, decompression and reintegration. i would also like to thank our experts from brook army medical center and the joint personnel recovery agency. they make our reintegration mission here possible.

u.s. army south has conducted this important mission six times previously. i cannot emphasize enough that reintegration phase is a culmination of herculean efforts that have taken place over a long period of time across the united states government's interagency and combat and command. this clearly demonstrates from our commander in chief on down, our nation is committed to never leaving a comrade behind. it is also my pleasure to have colonel ron wahl on my left and colonel bradley poppin on my right, both reintegration experts. >> thank you, sir. with that, i would just remind you that when it's time to have your question, once acknowledged, go ahead and stand up, remind us of who you are and your outlet and please direct your question to an individual at the panel. with that, we will start on the left side of the room. >> this is for any of you but especially i guess all of you

who were with him last night when he arrived. i recognize that you can't talk a whole lot about him because of the hipaa rules but mnonetheles, i would ask you to describe his mood upon landing. was he happy to be home? and how did it appear that he seems to be doing emotionally and physically? and the other half of that question is i saw in the background that you tried to normalize the person's emotions. can dr. poppin explain to everyone how you do that, especially when you have been in captivity for so long. >> first, i was on the ground when specialist bergdahl arrived about 0140 this morning, about 1:40 this morning. basically saw him for 60 seconds. that was about it. he was in uniform as a u.s. army soldier, maintained good deportment. we exchanged salutes and myself along with an escort officer

went over to the van which was part of the three-vehicle combo and took him here. he appeared just like any sergeant would when they see a two-star general. a little bit nervous. but he looked good and again, saluted and had good deportment. >> the second part, over to you. >> one part of integration is psychological decompression. during that process we try to return a sense of control. in captivity, fundamentally, your decision to make any choice is taken away. we slowly increase our chances to make choices and have a sense of control. we also have them go through healthy story telling, to be able to tell their story in a normal healthy manner with coso meaning to put it in context of their life. we also normalize behavior, knowing the activities in captivity may not be functional

now. also we help them return to action plans for the future so they can prepare for and deal with events and help them move forward. >> next question. >> i'm with cnn. two questions. at what point do you integrate with bowe the controversy surrounding his capture and his release, at what point is that introduced to him because every indication we have so far is that he is unaware of all of that. then also, it's been almost two weeks and as far as we know, he has not spoken with his parents. is that out of the norm? it seems that parents who have not seen their son for five years would have at least talked to him on the phone by now. >> to address the issue of family support, family support is a critical part of the reintegration process, making sure the family understands the reasons why we do it, the necessity of decompression and

they understand and support that process. overall, it is the returnee's choice to determine when and where they want to see. i believe the family understands that at this point in time. >> as far as the controversy around [ inaudible ]? >> the controversy around his disappearance? anything surrounding the controversy of his disappearance is not part of reintegration. that will be addressed in an investigation done by the department of army after reintegration is complete. >> just a clarification, you are asking if he's aware of the media reporting about him right now? okay. i recommend we pass that to brad. >> i would address that. again, given the sense of control, we expose them more and more to events that happen around them so at some point in time, he will be exposed to the media, what's going on in the world but again, in the past he had no exposure.

we gradually expose it to him. >> next question. >> just a moment. let's get the mic over to you so we can get that on tape. >> i've got a real loud voice anyway. my name is jessie. i'm with the abc affiliate here. can you confirm, i heard conflicting reports, is his family actually here? >> your question is for? >> whoever can answer that. >> no, his family is not here at this time. >> will they be coming? have they said? because i also saw a report that they were not planning on coming. >> at this point, the bergdahls have requested that their privacy is maintained and privacy on their travel also. >> very well. thank you. >> this would probably be a good time to share a release that was shared with us by the family this morning. i will go ahead and read that. it may stave off some of the questions about the family. on behalf of the bergdahl family, while the bergdahls are overjoyed that their son has returned to the united states,

mr. and mrs. bergdahl don't intend to make any travel plans public. they ask for continued privacy as they concentrate on their son's reintegration. and with that, we will go to the next question. >> hi. this is a little bit of a repeat and i wasn't sure whether it's colonel poppin or wolf who should address this. could you specifically address his condition now physically and also his condition mentally? and then i had one other question related to that. if you could talk a little bit about whether he has expressed -- whether he plans to or wants to return to duty. >> as far as his medical condition, we received him from the phase two integration team earlier this morning. overall we're pleased with his physical state. he was able to ambulate and walk

into the hospital and seemed to do so in a functional manner. we allowed him to get settled in to the hospital and into his room, and his environment, and we are going to be planning more comprehensive testing and consultations, stuff that was not done during phase two. >> regarding his mental state, from a psychiatrist's perspective, we see people in captivity are fundamentally normal people going through an abnormal event and they develop coping skills to live in that abnormal situation of captivity. our goal is to help them understand how it was functional at that time but may not be functional now. we don't see them at pathologically damaged. we have a normal person who survived an abnormal event who relied on healthy internal coping skills and resilience. >> over here. >> -- anything about returning to duty? >> i don't think we answered that. brad, you want to take that on?

>> the goal of reintegration is to return the soldier to duty. >> over here on the left. >> i'm from ktrk out of houston. can you tell us anything about sergeant bergdahl's memory of what happened out there? does he have any memories of the past five years? also, has he spoken to any soldiers who he served with and are there any plans to have him do so? >> that's a great question. we are trying [ inaudible ] to understand his story. i would add that at this point, it is truly his story and i would defer to him to answer those questions at a time he may find appropriate and the commander finds appropriate also. >> in terms of memories, is he sort of talking to people about what happened there? >> that is part of the debriefing process, yes, ma 'am. >> has he spoken to any soldiers out there? >> the members of the debriefing team and reintegration team do

consist of soldiers so in that aspect, yes. >> but are they soldiers who he served with? >> no. >> okay. next question. over on the right side of the room. >> could you say anything as far as this reintegration process, is it going to be typical of others that have gone through this and what kind of special challenges is he going to face, do you think? especially in his case? >> every reintegration process is unique. >> every reintegration process is unique as is every captivity event. our goal is to find out how he survived this event, what he knows of during the event. i would say it is also unique in the sense of we know sergeant bergdahl was the only member held in afghanistan and we know he had no contact with service members. thus denied the benefit of

affiliation with other u.s. service members in captivity. >> that was major general joseph disalvo with an army psychologist talking about sergeant bowe bergdahl. joining me now is member of the house armed services committee, loretta sanchez and white house correspondent at the huffington post, sam stein. congresswoman, let me start with you. you sit on the house armed services committee. just days ago, secretary of defense chuck hagel said he thought bowe bergdahl according to his doctors was not ready to leave germany. he, of course, in the last 48 hours, has arrived in the united states. we just heard the admitting physicians and psychologists say he exhibited good deportment and they are pleased with his physical state. from your perspective, was there some mixed communication coming from the white house or coming from this administration on bowe bergdahl's health? >> oh, i don't believe so. you know, one never knows with a patient how quickly they are going to be recovering, especially the mental anguish of

going for five years and being held in the dark in a shark-like cage as mentioned to his doctors in germany. so the fact of the matter is that he hopefully, what this might be a sign of, is that he's actually going to get better in a quicker amount of time than one would imagine and that's good. that's good, because that means that we can get some of the answers that we have been looking to maybe in the near future, and more importantly, that's good for him, that's good for the soldier, and certainly that would be a relief to his family. >> sam, it is a dramatic study in contrasts, the difference between the president with bowe bergdahl's family in the rose garden and the soldier himself arriving under cover of night with unconfirmed possible video footage of that arrival. do you think -- what do you think that reflects? speaking as someone who covers the white house extensively, is that like a lesson learned in terms of optics or do you just think it's circumstance?

>> i think it's circumstance. when -- we heard in that press conference that bowe bergdahl has no familiarity or knowledge of the media circus that's surrounding him. this reintegration process seems, according to the people in the press conference, seems extremely delicate. so i'm not surprised in the slightest that everything is being kept very hush-hush, that they're trying to expose him to only increments of news in real life and reintegration at a time, and that even his family and he have not met up yet. so it doesn't strike me as odd in the slightest that he's not being feted at the rose garden or not being ushered in with a million cameras in his face. it seems prudent in some ways. >> and certainly, i would not be one to suggest that bowe bergdahl should be subject to millions of cameras. congresswoman sanchez, we know that the army is planning a high level investigation, inquiry into the circumstances surrounding bergdahl's capture. so far, we are hearing at the moment, his health is the number

one priority, as i think most people would expect. but as someone who is on the house armed services committee, how would you like to see the department of defense proceed from here? >> well, the army has already allocated or endorsed a second -- a two-star general to oversee the investigation. you know, first and foremost, think about what we did in order to get this young man back. the fact of the matter is, we want to ensure that we can get his health back both from a physical, mental, psychological standpoint. so the first and foremost thing will be making sure that that happens and that's why we have these experts who have done this before who, again, every person is different and so it will -- it may take awhile. it may be pretty quick. we don't really know. but that's the first thing. as soon as his psychologists understand and can tell that he is integrated, that he is

understanding the world about him, i'm sure that we will have professional questioners who will go in and say talk about what you believe happened that day, can you remember it, and not only try to get the story from his set of circumstances, what was going on, we will probably also have debriefers in there about the particulars of the captors, the people who captured him, you know, what were their movements, how did they communicate, things we might be able to use for the future. remember he's one of the few we've had that has been under those hands for five years. more importantly, what we will also have, a set of team under this two-star general who will obviously go and talk to those who knew him, those who were inside in his unit, to try to understand what they believe happened on that day. and you know, that's what an investigation is about. >> sam, i already used the phrase a study in contrast. >> use it again.

>> why not. it is particularly fraught day, i think, to be having this press conference, given what is going on in iraq and given the fact that bowe bergdahl in many ways represents one face of the draw-down in afghanistan, the return of taliban insurgents to the area at least, underscores the sort of tenuous nature and

fragmented nature of our engagement over there. and the region in general, the instability that continues to plague that part of the world. for the white house, you know, how much do you think iraq will inform how they deal with the bergdahl issue and going forward, afghanistan? >> well, it's interesting, i think actually three events here. the bergdahl event, obviously what's happening in iraq right now. but also, the scandal surrounding v.a. care. >> of course. we segued from a discussion of how our veterans are not getting the care they deserve to wondering whether or not we should have kept troops there. when we go into theaters or war

zones, we are dealing with a lot of bad actors. there's a lot of collateral damage that comes and acompanies it. we need to take these into consideration. not saying that there's going to be plenty of bowe bergdahls in the future but we do need to take these into consideration when we decide whether or not we are going to stay, keep residual forces in iraq and what we're going to do when we get out of afghanistan. >> congresswoman sanchez and sam stein, thank you both for your time. after the break, is this the end of the new beginning for iraq and will the u.s. do anything about it. well, there is. [ male announcer ] it's called ocuvite. a vitamin totally dedicated to your eyes, from the eye care experts at bausch + lomb. as you age, eyes can lose vital nutrients. ocuvite helps replenish key eye nutrients. ocuvite has a unique formula not found in your multivitamin to help protect your eye health. now that's a pill worth taking. [ male announcer ] ocuvite. help protect your eye health.

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chaos and sectarian war today as sunni militants captured two more towns in the northeastern part of the country and the nation's top shiite cleric urged any iraqi who could carry a weapon to take up arms in defense. according to an iraqi official who spoke to the "washington post" hours after this recruitment, more than 30,000 people had already signed up to defend baghdad. speaking from the white house this morning, president obama gave an update on iraq and where his administration stands on taking action. >> we will not be sending u.s. troops back into combat in iraq, but i have asked my national security team to prepare a range of other options that could help support iraq security forces and i will be reviewing those options in the days ahead. this should be a wake-up call. the united states will do our part, but understand that ultimately, it's up to the iraqis as a sovereign nation to solve their problems. >> joining me now is msnbc counterterror analyst and former director of the national counterterrorism center, michael

leiter. from london, founder of women for women international and former deputy national security advisor for iraq and afghanistan and professor of international affairs at harvard university, megan o'sullivan. megan, let me start with you given your extensive experience in the region. the president was slightly opaque this afternoon or this morning about what the administration might do but there is the suggestion of air strikes. do you think that is the right call? >> i think that it obviously depends on a number of factors but it's potentially one of the very small number of things that could help stave off the progress that we have seen isis make in the last couple of days and it could help stave off even further bloodshed and more widespread conflict. you mentioned the mobilization of people in baghdad and that's not all in the context of the iraqi army. that's in the context of militias, shiite militias, al sadr's militia which we haven't

seen for quite a long time. there's a real potential for this even spiraling further out of control and some quick u.s. -- quick but thought-out u.s. decisions on the military side could be helpful but only as president obama i think said wisely, in the context of looking at this as not just a military challenge but also a political and regional one, because this is not just about what's happening in that corridor we have heard a lot about from mosul to baghdad. this is part of the syrian conflict. this is part of the iranian situation in the neighborhood and we need to look at it through that lens as we think about next steps. >> i want to go to you, given the fact you are from iraq and given the centuries old sectarian fighting that has gone on, the president made very clear he thought al maliki bore a huge amount of the responsibility in terms of how they have gotten to this point and where we go from here. how much blame do you think he should shoulder in all of this?

>> partially. partially he did not, maliki did not deal with sunni uprising a couple years ago or last year, actually. but partially also this is an issue of old saddam hussein regime members such as the former vice president who is actually part of the isis organizing and grouping himself with the fundamentalists. this is also partially an old regime's attempt to come back and to kick out what they see as a predominantly shiite government. so it's not exclusively a maliki issue but it's a very very dangerous situation in iraq. i was talking to my friends and family today and there's a big nervousness from all communities who are very worried for the first time about their future in the country. >> michael, from a counterterrorism perspective, we have heard that isis is even more brutal than al qaeda. that that fundamentally is the reason we should truly be concerned beyond just regional instability. what are your thoughts about

this group and how concerned the american public should be in terms of it being a national security priority? >> i think the u.s. public should be greatly concerned because of the regional issues and because of the trans-national issues beyond the region. the group is incredibly extreme. it is incredibly violent and is split with larger al qaeda because zawahiri thought they were being too extreme against other muslims. when you get kicked out of al qaeda, that's not a good sign for us and i think americans should understand as megan said very eloquently, this is about broader sectarian regional instability and that affects very close allies of the united states, jordan, israel, and this group poses a threat to the united states homeland and western europe both for its training of extremists in syria and now because it has an even and now because it has an even broader safe

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right now there is a stone wall of information. and a lot of people are terrified. i have not been able to speak to any of the children for the reasons i just told you but the mothers and the fathers that i speak to are terrified. i spoke this afternoon with a mother who came over in march of this year. her 10-year-old daughter was separated from her right after they arrived through here, through the rio grande valley. her daughter was told by authorities that her daughter was sent to california. she hasn't been able to speak to her daughter since. >> it is a dramatic situation down there. jose, i have stood a couple hundred feet from where you are and the situation has only gotten dramatically worse. thank you so much for your time. we can't wait to have you back in new york. thank you as always.

that is all. i will see you back here monday at 4:00 p.m. eastern. "the ed show" is coming up next. good evening, americans. welcome to "the ed show" all the way live from new york. i'm michael eric dyson in for ed schultz. let's get to work. >> i would call oscar black eagle. >> his first trip to indian country since he was elected. >> one of the biggest threats is the health, welfare and safety of our women and children. >> isolated communities that are far-flung in south dakota and north dakota. >> there, the president will talk with native americans. >> pretty amazing. you think he remembers that? >> i do. we hope that he remembers the