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Bowe Bergdahl Arrives in Texas After Years as Taliban Prisoner

The former prisoner of the Taliban is taken to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio after arriving from Germany where he had been treated.
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Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl arrived in Texas early Friday, returning to the U.S. after spending nearly five years as a captive of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon confirmed around 3:35 a.m. ET that Bergdahl had landed in San Antonio, Texas. He was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, where he will continue treatment initiated at a U.S. military hospital in Germany.

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Bergdahl will not make any public appearances during this phase of his reintegration, and the Pentagon said there would be no media access to his stay.

"Our first priority is making sure that Sgt. Bergdahl continues to get the care and support he needs," Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said.

Kirby added that there was "no timeline" for Bergdahl's reintegration process.

After being freed from nearly five years of Taliban captivity in a controversial prisoner swap, Bergdahl was sent to a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.

Earlier this week, officials said Bergdahl was in “good enough physical condition to allow him to return to the United States,” but “not ready psychologically or emotionally."

Some of Bergdahl's fellow former soldiers have portrayed him as a deserter who walked off a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan in June 2009 before he was captured.

They claim other service members were killed looking for him, but Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel disputed that during a congressional hearing Wednesday.

The Pentagon says the details of how Bergdahl ended up in enemy hands will be investigated, but has defended the secret deal that freed him. President Barack Obama also has defended the deal.

Some members of Congress have complained that they were not told of the deal ahead of time and that the five Taliban detainees transferred out of Guantanamo Bay to Qatar were too dangerous to free.

Christopher Nelson of NBC News contributed to this report.