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Evan Buetow, 27, who was a sergeant in the platoon:
• Buetow, speaking from Maple Valley, Washington, said Bergdahl had asked him a number of questions a short time before his disappearance that, in retrospect, make it apparent that Bergdahl had been planning to leave.
• Bergdahl asked him, for example, how much of a cash advance he could get and how to go about mailing home his personal computer and other belongings. He also asked what would happen if his weapon and other sensitive items such as night vision goggles went missing. He said he told Bergdahl that, as any soldier would know, that would be "a big deal."
• "At the time ... it wasn't really alarming" to hear Bergdahl ask about those things, Buetow said. "Yes, it was a kind of off-the-wall question," but the notion of a fellow soldier running off during the night seemed so far-fetched as to not be possible, he said.
• Buetow said he feels strongly that Bergdahl should face trial for desertion, but he said it is less clear that he should be blamed for the deaths of all soldiers killed during months of trying to find him. Beutow said he knows of at least one death on an intelligence-directed infantry patrol to a village in search of Bergdahl. More broadly, the mission of his entire unit changed after Bergdahl's disappearance because it began to incorporate efforts to pursue clues to his whereabouts.
• "Those soldiers who died on those missions, they would not have been where they were ... if Bergdahl had never walked away," he said. "At the same time I do believe it is somewhat unfair for people to say, 'It is Bergdahl's fault that these people are dead.' I think that's a little harsh."
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• Matt Vierkant, 27, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was a team leader of another squad in Bergdahl's platoon.
• He's now out of the military and studying mechanical engineering.
• Soldiers from his unit and other units were wounded or killed on missions to chase down leads related to Bergdahl, he said.
• Asked about the statement Sunday by National Security Advisor Susan Rice that Bergdahl served "with honor and distinction," he said: "That statement couldn't be further from the truth. I don't know if she was misinformed or doesn't know about the investigations and everything else, or what."
• He said Bergdahl's fellow soldiers knew within five or 10 minutes from the discovery of disappearance that he had walked away. In retrospect the signs were there, he said, but there was nothing so definitive that would have prompted action.

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