Michelle Malkin published an article Wednesday in which she provided a detailed, devastating account of the search for Bowe Bergdahl after he allegedly abandoned his post.

Malkin begins by quoting one of the soldiers involved in the search for Bergdahl who said that the accounts that Bergdahl had lagged behind on patrol and been captured or had wandered off drunk were utterly false. Instead, Bergdahl had grown disenchanted with military, and abandoned his post: “He walked off the post with a day's supply of water and had written down before that he wanted to live in the mountains.”

Malkin then moves into the central account of the article from another one of the soldiers. The source “still holds a highly sensitive position,” so he will not go public yet, but he provided Malkin with a lengthy account of the deadly search for Bergdahl. Like her other source, he stated that Bergdahl had left deliberately, having grown “disenchanted with the war effort." What seems to have been “the law straw for him” was extra duty assigned to him for falling asleep in his armored vehicle.

On the morning of June 30, 2009, "Bergdahl completed a guard shift, removed his equipment, weapon and sensitive items, and left OP MEST with several Afghan security forces personnel. He took a compass, a couple bottles of water and two knives and his journal. His exact intentions may never be known, but he willingly walked off OP MEST and was secured by enemy forces not long after."

That evening, the soldier was “shaken awake,” and told to pack for a three-day assault. On approach to their objective that night, their helicopters took heavy fire and had to divert to OP MEST (where they avoided a near disastrous friendly fire situation). The next day the on foot search began:

"We averaged 18 to 22 kilometers a day on foot, clearing house to house, room to room looking for Bergdahl. ... We even went as far as rappelling down wells and crawling through tunnels to look for him." The standard procedure for recapturing Bergdahl was not "normal," the soldier noted. "He was very good with knives, and trained to throw and fight hand-to-hand with knives. We did not know the mental state of Bergdahl at the time. All we knew was he left on his own, he caused us lots of hardship, and if we entered a room and saw him, we would put him down because he could attack us."

On the morning of July 4, the soldiers executed the mission “without incident” and were waiting for the aircraft to be exfiltrated, but they were suddenly diverted:

“Our aircraft were in sight when they turned and flew in the opposite direction. At the time we did not know why, but we were stranded. The enemy took advantage of Bergdahl's capture and attacked numerous outposts that morning. Combat Outpost Zerok was almost overrun, multiple soldiers were wounded, and PFCs Justin Casillas and Aaron Fairbairn lost their lives fighting that day.”

The source explained that they later learned their exfiltration aircraft had been diverted to support COP Zerok, whose situation had grown so “dire” that Apache gunships had to resort to “low-level unarmed passes to distract the enemy,” requiring the search time to spend “the remainder of Independence Day walking in the desert.”

The source completes the account by saying this all resulted because “Bergdahl got tired of playing soldier”:

“A few days later, we (FTF) conducted a daylight raid on some tents looking for Bergdahl. We took heavy small arms and RPG fire on approach and ran off the CH-47s in contact. Our entire element engaged the enemy, who turned out to be a Taliban shadow governor and his bodyguards. ... Multiple people died that day. ... All of this happened because Bergdahl got tired of playing soldier. The remainder of that deployment was focused on recovery efforts. Countless members of the brigade were wounded, and we lost good friends, among them PFC Matthew Martinek and 2LT Darryn Andrews. I have no doubt these great men would be alive if Bergdahl did not leave."

Malkin clarifies that eight, not six, American soldiers died as a result of Bergdahl’s actions: Andrews, Casillas, Fairbairn, Martinek, PFC Morriss Walker, and Staff Sergeants Clayton Bowen, Kurt Curtiss, and Michael Murphrey.

Malkin also provides her source’s response to the administration’s "incomprehensible" decision to trade "five war criminals for a traitor," an act he calls "sickening." He said that while he is glad Bergdahl is safe and with his family, he should not be "hailed as some kind of hero" and "should return home to face a court martial."

Read the full account here.