Posted on 02/06/2005 6:45:18 AM PST by presidio9
In front of a cheering male audience, two young women wearing only bras and panties throw themselves into a mud-filled plastic kiddie pool and roll around in a wild wrestling match.
At one point a man in the audience raises a water bottle and douses the entwined pair.
At another, a "referee" moves in to break up the scantily clad grapplers.
A young blond lifts her T-shirt to expose her breasts. A brunette turns her back to the camera and exposes her thong undies.
These scenes, taken from 30 photos leaked to the Daily News, could have been snapped at an out-of-control frat party.
But this happened a world away from any American college.
The photos were taken in Camp Bucca, the military prison at Umm Qasr in the hot sands of southern Iraq near the Kuwaiti border.
The women are not coeds but military policewomen who had left their uniforms in a pile not far off.
The men are soldiers, too. Most of them wore T-shirts emblazoned with Army logos, but at least one was still wearing his uniform.
Some were sergeants, including the referee, and some allegedly were drunk.
The photos were taken last Oct. 30, in the same period when enemy detainees were being transferred to Camp Bucca from Abu Ghraib, the prison made notorious by photos of Americans torturing naked Iraqis.
The Camp Bucca pictures document no such abuses.
But they do show what experts called a disconcerting lapse in discipline at a time when Army brass was touting the camp as a model of reform.
"It was basically a goodbye party for those of us who were leaving and a welcome party for those coming in," the alleged referee, Sgt. Emil Ganim of the 160th Military Police Battalion, told The News. "It was a chance for people to blow off some steam before coming home after spending a year in a combat zone."
But one participant described less-benign behavior.
Two sergeants, she said, told her "they had been lending out their room for soldiers to have sex" - a serious infraction of military regulations.
One female soldier, a prison guard with the 160th Military Police Battalion, was photographed baring her breast and showing off her thong panties.
The picture apparently was taken in the room of one of those sergeants, an investigator reported.
The witness told investigators that two high-ranking noncommissioned officers, a first sergeant and a master sergeant, were present. She "noted that these NCOs had been drinking and were noticeably drunk," the report said.
Ganim said American civilians at the camp also participated in the party, and "if anybody had liquor, it was them."
Ganim has since returned to his civilian job as a deputy sheriff in Leon County, Fla.
"It appears that this event was allegedly coordinated by NCOs [sergeants] of the 160th," according to the initial investigation.
One of the soldiers told investigators the mud-wrestling match was underway when she arrived.
"She took off her uniform and joined the other female soldiers that were wrestling," the report says. But "once soldiers started asking for the females to expose themselves [she and two of the other wrestlers] put their uniforms back on and left the area."
But at least one woman was not deterred.
Deanna Allen, a 19-year-old prison guard with the 105th MP Battalion, smiled and lifted her T-shirt. Photos show a man standing close to her and leering at her breasts while another G.I. snaps pictures.
"From what I understand they dared her to do it," said Allen's grandmother, Luci Tomlin, in Black Mountain, N.C. "It was a loose moment. She is a strong-headed young lady. Sometimes she can be a little irrational."
Allen, who is still stationed in Iraq, did not respond to E-mailed questions from The News. She was demoted in rank to private first class.
"A sex party with alcohol that is prohibited would suggest a serious breakdown of military discipline," said Washington-based lawyer Eugene Fidell, a military-justice expert. "Just how it would be handled would be determined by the commander, who has very broad discretion in situations like this.
Fidell said punishments could range from "a good chewing out to loss of rank" for enlisted personnel and "a letter or career-killing transfer" for officers who allowed it to happen.
Yes.
Follow it up with Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
And then Bringing Up Baby. (Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn)
If all our movie choices don't motivate them, I dunno what will.
*yes, but motivate them to what?*
;-)
Yes. Normal behavior for college kids. But American soldiers fighting a war against terrrorism in Islamic coutries do not have the unlimited luxury of acting like college kids. Our soldiers deserve relaxation. But they must remember that they are not at Florida State. They are in the middle east, home of the birka.
Then be prepared to raise your standards for enlistment and probably quadruple military personel costs to get the kind of mature soldier with that much discipline, something we have never had, or particularly wanted, before.
A PC military, how precious.
I don't believe it is a rule but my experience has been that if you put it out there, anyone can shoot at it.
Did what happen? Drinking and rowdy behavior? Yes, it happened.
Some immoral, international crisis? No, not even remotely.
Nothing like a good mud bath to make your skin glow.
....uh, to have morality, decency, and a code of honor that has to be stuck to?
Consensual fun versus non consensual groping isn't a good analogy. Nice try though.
Maybe it would be safer just to lock our troops inside confessionals when they're off duty, so if they think of something sinful they can confess right away?
Behavior like this can legitimately be depraved in the center aisle of church, but a lot more serious "depravity" occurs weekly on our college campuses and at the local bars.
These men and women have been tossed together (by a concededly feminist PC agenda of depravity) in a foreign country's killing fields.
You expect a sterile, hygienic WAR? Then grab an X-box and play soldier. No death, blood or body parts. No people. No depravity. No reality.
Walk the streets of Falujah or work "behind the lines" waiting for that sniper bullet to take out the back of your head or that satchel charge on the civilian-hire in the mess tent to rip you apart. Wait for death to, at any second, violently end your 30 year old life, and do this for a year or more. Wait for death to violently and callously take your buddy that you've shared a mean existence with for a tour of duty. Take that waiting and retain your civility when you and your companions are offered some down time.
Depravity? Heck, I'll donate money for our soldiers next depravity party like this one. Men and women of the Armed Services, I salute you.
I don't see that any of the soldiers involved were stuffed in a '68 Olds and drowned, so I fail to see how this incident rises to the Kennedy level.
I might, but it was your initial soapbox comment that I responded to.
*chuckle*
After watching all the movies we mentioned, some people I knew would have been sitting still with glazed eyes and drool coming from their mouths.
I'm not sure we'd motivate them to 'behave' so much as forcibly induce catatonia.
I find it perfectly acceptable for off-duty personnel RISKING THEIR LIVES FOR HOLIER-THAN-THOU, UNGRATEFUL SNOBS critiquing them from their comfy living rooms.
"I don't believe it is a rule but my experience has been that if you put it out there, anyone can shoot at it."
Good thing I was wearing my flak jacket then, Eh? LOL! I'll make sure I wear it when posting in defense of the 99% of military members who manage to act professionally from here on out. Didn't think I'd have to wear body armor on this forum, but I learn something new here every day. :)
Consensual goes out the window when alcohol is involved.
Apples and oranges. Nice try.
I agree. Unfortunately I think you're talking about those drinking, wrestling and stripping.
I'm talking about the punks that leaked these photos to discredit the military and get their colleagues into trouble.
May those casting stones, please look in the mirror.
1. Can you do the job they are doing?
2. What would you do with your time off, if there is any?
If you don't know that there can be a very fine line between consensual and non-consenual sexual activity, you're far less worldy than you assume--and unacquainted with the facts surrounding the Tailhook scandal.
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