A certain headline-grabbing Republican presidential candidate offered up his latest soundbite at a campaign event in Iowa on July 18 when he declared he “like[s] people who weren’t captured.” The reference was to Sen. John McCain, an ex-POW who spent five and a half years in a Vietnam prison camp. In America’s troop-worshipping society, there’s no greater offense than to disparage…

The release and return of American POW Bowe Bergdahl started off as simply cause for relief and celebration for his family and friends. Thanks to politics, it keeps taking on additional layers of interpretation for others. The revelation that Bergdahl questioned the continuing mission in Afghanistan prior to his capture has many of the same people who usually…