As long as there has been war, there have been prisoners. And as long as there have been people held by the so-called enemy, there have been some who went free -- whether they escaped, were exchanged or were released. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is now part of the club. Nearly five years after his capture in Afghanistan, Bergdahl was recently released in exchange for five detainees from the U.S. military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. What will Bergdahl do next? Time will tell. 
Andrew Jackson was all of 13 years old when he joined the Patriots in the Revolutionary War. By 1781, he was in British custody -- during which he was slashed by an upset British officer and contracted smallpox, a disease that claimed the life of his brother and fellow captive, Robert. Their mother arranged for their release as part of a prisoner exchange. He would go on to become "Old Hickory," establishing himself as a soldier, a politician and the tough, rugged representation of the American frontier. Jackson's place in U.S. history was cemented in 1828, with his election as the nation's seventh president. 
While people nowadays may not know Meriwether Lewis Clark Sr., his name is familiar. He's the son of William Clark and was named after Meriwether Lewis, the two men who led the groundbreaking Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Northwest. A U.S. Military Academy grad and architect whose works helped shape St. Louis, Missouri, Meriwether Lewis Clark Sr. was a high-ranking figure in the Confederate military during the Civil War until his capture in 1865. With the end of the war, Clark ended up in Louisville, Kentucky, and resumed his work as an engineer until his death in 1881. 
Winston Churchill was a journalist, not a soldier. Nonetheless, he found himself captured in South Africa in 1899, after Boer soldiers ambushed an armored train. But Churchill, pictured at right with other prisoners, didn't stay in Pretoria for long. Less than a month after his capture, he hurdled a prison wall and walked free. The episode helped catapult Churchill's standing in his native Britain. But he didn't stop there. Churchill went on to become one of his country's most recognizable figures over the subsequent decades, including as its prime minister in the thick of World War II. 
When Merian Cooper's plane crashed during World War I, an American general declared Cooper dead, according to the Jacksonville, Florida, Historical Society. In fact, he had been captured by the Germans. Cooper remained in Europe fighting Bolsheviks after his release, then embarked on expeditions to places like modern-day Ethiopia, Iran and Thailand. Upon returning home, Cooper made a name for himself as a movie studio executive and the creator of the iconic King Kong. He kept a foothold in public life right to the end, from joining U.S. forces during World War II to -- one decade later -- backing Sen. Joseph McCarthy in his fight to rid Hollywood and the country of communists. 
Charles de Gaulle was a captain in the French army in 1916 when, during the Battle of Verdun, he was shot then taken prisoner by German forces. His release at World War I's conclusion didn't end his service to his country or its military, including a leading role in the French resistance to the Nazis during World War II. De Gaulle became president of his newly liberated nation following the Nazis' fall, though he didn't stay around for long -- he resigned his post in January 1946. Still, de Gaulle remained active in public and political life. In 1959, the ardent nationalist once again became president, a position he held for a decade. 
Jean-Paul Sartre was already a teacher, writer and philosopher when he was drafted in 1939 to join French forces fighting in World War II. He was captured in 1940, spending about a year as a prisoner. Sartre didn't rest after his release. He was active in the French resistance and as a writer, including the 1943 publications of "L'Etre et le Neant" ("Being and Nothingness") and the play "Les Mouches" ("The Flies"). He continued to gain international fame and recognition after the war ended, including earning the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature for his autobiography, "Les Mots" ("The Words"). 
Before Kurt Vonnegut wrote books that became must-reads in American classrooms, he was a soldier. But his time in combat came to an abrupt halt in 1944's Battle of the Bulge, when Nazi forces captured him. Vonnegut was a prisoner in Dresden during the Allies' massive, deadly firebombing of that German city, an episode he later recounted in "Slaughterhouse-Five." That book was one of several --- along with "Cat's Cradle" and "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" --- that came to define his legacy. In the 1980s, Vonnegut experienced a resurgence, thanks to books such as "Deadeye Dick" and "Bluebeard," and he became an outspoken peace and anti-nuclear activist. 
Francis Gary Powers wasn't captured at war -- at least not an official one. The Soviet Union shot down the U-2 spy plane he was piloting on May 1, 1960, after which Powers spent 21 months in a Moscow prison. He ended up back in the United States in 1962, as part of an exchange of spies with the Soviets. Powers testified before Congress and chronicled what happened to him in a book. He also embarked on a new, less covert life, including years working at Lockheed Martin and as a helicopter pilot broadcasting traffic updates in Los Angeles. He died in a helicopter crash in 1977. 
In early 1973, nearly 600 prisoners of war who'd been captured in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia returned home to the United States. Many of them later made their mark on the world, but none is more widely recognizable than John McCain. The Viet Cong shot down his Navy fighter jet in 1967, then shuttled him around prison camps and tortured him. McCain remained in the Navy after his release until 1981. The next year, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona; four years later, he became a U.S. senator, a job he still has today. He won the Republican nomination for president in 2008. 
Jessica Lynch was a 19-year-old private first class when her supply convoy took a wrong turn in Iraq and was ambushed on March 23, 2003. U.S. special forces rescued her from an Iraqi hospital in Nasiriyah eight days later -- all part of an ordeal that turned her, unexpectedly, into an overnight heroine and one of the most recognizable faces of the Iraq War. She is seen here leaving a U.S. Air Force base in Germany on her way back to the United States. Since returning home, Lynch has largely stayed out of the media spotlight. She is raising her daughter, earned a college degree in elementary education and lives near her hometown of Palestine, West Virginia. - Aaron Miller: U.S. deal to free Bergdahl was ugly, but it was moral and necessary
- He says when U.S. sends troops into harm's way, it's responsible for them
- U.S. weakened its hand by making deal, he says, but it reflected nation's values
- Miller: We need to face that we had the conviction, courage to act, no matter how messy
Editor's note: Aaron David Miller is a vice president and distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and was a Middle East negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. Follow him on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- Having worked in government for more than two decades on the foreign policy side, one of my key takeaways is that the world is a cruel and unforgiving place. And with apologies to Clint Eastwood, more often than not, United States policy options are choices not among the good, bad and the ugly, but just between the last two.
The deal to bring Bowe Bergdahl home was one such tortuous choice. Let's be clear: This is a very bad, even ugly deal. The United States undercut almost every principle we claim to adhere to on negotiating with terrorists (in this case, the Haqqani network, the militant group that was holding Bergdahl, has plenty of American blood on its hands) and let out some very bad guys who are almost certain to direct any number of enterprises to attack Americans and weaken the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.
And the administration carried out the Bergdahl deal with its characteristic lack of tactical dexterity and smarts, failing to brief key members of Congress appropriately and perhaps even violating U.S. law. Finally, for all its effort, given the strange and confusing facts surrounding Bergdahl's own actions, the Obama administration is being severely criticized for what it has done.
But notwithstanding all that, and however distasteful the deal, it was both a moral and necessary one. And here's why:
Written or unwritten, traditional code or assumed values, in an America-initiated war there are American responsibilities and commitments to those who fight it. We didn't seek out the Afghan campaign. It was a legitimate response to the 9/11 attacks, regardless of how badly managed and unattainable its objectives became over the past decade.
And it matters not a whit that we have a volunteer military and that Bergdahl willfully stepped up or that he may have turned against the war or perhaps even deserted his post. These are matters that may or may not be sorted out later.
What counts are the responsibilities and obligations the U.S. military and political establishment -- in this case, the commander in chief -- have to those whom they put in harm's way. This relationship between the state and those it marshals and mobilizes to defend the country -- draft or volunteer military -- is a fundamental and contractual obligation.
That tradition was established in our own Civil War, in which the magnitude of the death and human misery fundamentally changed the relationship between the federal government and its citizenry.
What was going through Bergdahl's head? 
Bergdahl accused of seeking out enemy 
McCain: I'd have rejected Bergdahl deal As the extraordinary PBS documentary "Death and the American Civil War" makes clear, before 1861, "there were no national cemeteries in America. No provisions for identifying the dead, or for notifying next of kin, or for providing aid to the suffering families of dead veterans. No federal relief organizations, no effective ambulance corps, no adequate federal hospitals, no federal provisions for burying the dead. No Arlington Cemetery. No Memorial Day."
That war created a new frame of reference for soldier, citizen, and the state: a new set of commitments and undertakings at the national level that have broadened and deepened to this day. That Bergdahl may have violated his part of the contract is dismaying, even perverse, under the circumstances. But it is really not the point.
He's one of ours in a war we may not have sought but that our military fought; we made his presence on the field of battle possible and we are responsible for getting him back.
Does that mean paying any price and sacrificing countless Americans lives in the process? Of course not. But it does mean undertaking a determined -- even relentless -- effort to look for opportunities and ways to accomplish it consistent with our interests and values.
Now for the price that was paid. The details of the urgency, timing and opportunity to trade for Bergdahl are not at all clear. The state of his health, the accuracy of Qatari warnings that his life was in danger, growing frustration on the part of his captors are all missing pieces. And we may never know them fully. The end results are clear though.
Did the Haqqani network score a propaganda victory in this trade? Yes, they did. Did the United States weaken its own hand by showing that it will trade kidnapped U.S. soldiers for Afghan prisoners? Sure it did. Is there a risk that those we released will conspire again to kill Americans? You bet there is. But these are contingencies, possibilities in a world of uncertainties that must be measured against the certainty and reality of recovering an American life and redeeming a soldier after five years of captivity.
We will never know whether, had the United States not cut this deal, Bergdahl would have been irreparably damaged or killed. Under these circumstances, the decision to redeem Bergdahl was not only compelling, it was a moral imperative.
We are not the Israelis. We do not live in an environment of threat and insecurity, one in which our citizens serve in the military and that service is inextricably linked to our culture, values and perception of the world. We do not face existential threats. Nor is our political establishment conditioned to accept asymmetrical trades with terrorists that can reach such proportions as the prisoner deal with Hamas for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit, who was traded for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. But we claim to be a moral nation with values and principles that coexist alongside our interests.
Indeed, many argue that our values are our interests. I cannot think of many foreign policy actions in recent years in which the United States acted principally for moral, ethical or humanitarian considerations. This is one of those rare occasions.
And instead of beating ourselves up -- and the President, too -- for acting according to values that we purport to cherish, we need to face up to the fact that we had the conviction and courage to act in a way that was both moral and necessary, however messy the process and the price we may yet pay.
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