The usual welcoming back of a soldier includes parades and celebration. Bowe Bergdahl’s hometown of Hailey, Idaho had been planning such festivities until controversy struck over the details of his disappearance.

Bowe Bergdahl was an American Sergeant serving in a platoon in eastern Afghanistan when he disappeared in June 2009. His sudden disappearance caused a search that led to several soldiers’ deaths and to the discovery that he was being held captive by the Taliban. Five years of failed negotiation and Bergdahl’s deteriorating health led to a trade of five Taliban members for Bergdahl, who is receiving medical attention in a US army base in Germany.

Contrasting accounts have risen over the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance. Some claim that Bergdahl left a letter expressing his desire to leave the army and confessing to desertion, while others say he simply left the base for an adventure. Either way, he was captured by the Taliban soon after.

Bergdahl’s troop, like countless others in Afghanistan, was placed in a hostile and isolated part of Afghanistan. The unit experienced several changes in leadership early on, and rules and discipline were considerably lax. According to some comrades in his unit, Bergdahl was eccentric, but he was a good soldier and got along well with his other unit mates.

“He wanted to take the fight to the enemy and do the mission of the infantry,”Gerald Sutton, who spent time with Bergdahl at their outpost, said to the New York Times. “He was a good soldier, and whenever he was told to do something, he would do it.”

While he was apparently itching to go on the defensive, other soldiers said he was also very interested in humanitarian efforts towards the Afghan citizens affected by the war.

There is also some speculation that Bergdahl had been working with the Taliban. Further obscuring the facts are some soldiers’ accounts that Bergdahl would often ask the Afghan villagers if they spoke English or knew the Taliban.

In a report made by an investigating officer in 2009, there is no mention of Bergdahl asking villagers about the Taliban. Bergdahl had befriended some of the Afghan officers that helped guard their base, but that and helping villagers seem to be the end of any confirmed interactions with Afghan citizens.

Following all this speculation, the Obama administration has been put in hot water. Members of Congress argue that the tradeoff was done with little discussion with or involvement of all but just a few members of Congress. Others argue that releasing five members of Taliban is a danger to military troops in Afghanistan.

According to Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the five former prisoners of Guantanamo Bay were sent to Qatar. Qatar gave a written promise that the members would remain in Qatar for a year and be kept out of doing any business with the Taliban.

Kerry stated that the tradeoff was necessary; many reported that Bergdahl’s health was deteriorating. It is believed that if the trade hadn’t occurred, Bergdahl could have died.

“It seems to me we have an ability — we know we have the ability — to be able to deal with people who want to threaten Americans, who threaten the United States,” Kerry said to the Washington Post. “And if that’s what they go back on their word to do or if the Qataris don’t enforce what they’ve done, we have any number of avenues available to us to be able to deal with that.”