Out of control backyard party at Bill O'Reilly's house.
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.
hahahaha...
"Judge not, lest ye be judged."
America's: I'm glad that you are not going to judge them...I'll leave that to their C.O. When they signed on that dotted line, took the oath, and donned that uniform they (while not losing their humanity) do have standards and regs to follow. It's part and parcel to being in the service. On duty or off, you are under the UCMJ 24/7. Were these Cortmartial Offenses? Of course not IMHO. Did this behavior merit a talking to and some minor disciplinary action? Of course! Photos or not, the CO, if he had gotten word of this would be obligated to do something for just the simple reason that he would be letting the unit know that he demands order on his base.
So- it's OK for you to judge these soldiers who had an R&R party last year at the end of their tour of duty - because they had a lack of self control?
What a condescending attitude. It's a good thing you were not there.
i have to say that i find your's the most balanced opinion on the thread and the one that makes the most sense to me. let me say up front, i know NOTHING about the military, but i full support them in every way. they definitely deserve to blow off steam and not get into trouble for it, but this instance just doesn't seem right to me. felt intrinsically wrong somehow. i was glad to see your post as it seems to be neither puritanical nor condoning no holds barred behavior, either.
Soldiers have been forbidden to copulate with each other since day one but suddenly we are Nazis for insisting on enforcing this rule.
For centuries we have all kinds of rules about who can copulate with whom.
Let's keep our eye on the ball.
"Stateside help?!?" Hopefully not a dig there!
Of course they don't need "Stateside help." Their CO can (or should) be able to handle this in house just fine. I know I have (and will probably again soon...stupid soldier tricks happen all the time) taken care of similar problems without making a federal case of it.
Out of control backyard party at Bill O'Reilly's house.
Right on. Will we export debauchery with democracy? Would you see such behavior in a Al-Quita military camp?
You would not. 
Good order and discipline save lives and justify the harshest penalties in a combat zone.
Hmmmm. Apparently other people's "judgements" were different than yours Doc since i saw at least two calls for them to be discharged, DISHONORABLY!
Unfortunately, at this stage, their CO's aren't going to have much to say about it since printing in the paper is going to land it in the lap of the Pentagon and in the political sphere, that's what blew up Abu Grhaib into such a stink, not that anything horrendous really happened, certainly not torture.
Oh well, for better heads than mine to work out I guess :)
Oh my Lord. Women have not been soldiers, at least in any large numbers, until very recently, so since "day one" solders were, for all intents and purposes, all men. Hell, depending on your definition of "day one" you can't even say the men were forbidden to copulate with each other (see "Ancient Greece").
If we want to do things like they've been done since "day one" we need to reestablish the idea of the "camp follower."
The problem is that some bad civilian judges are judging the military and making things worse, much worse. If they had let them alone and allowed the armed forces to segregate women from men this would not have happened. That, not cameras, is the big difference.
This is not just some civilian's opinion, a lot of commanders are starting to complain about readiness being affected by this nonsense.
I know.
Swap out the girls with guys, and it's absolutely nothing.
And before someone mentions the breast flashing thing: how many male soldiers do they honestly think have NOT mooned someone during this war?
My old unti had sand matches all the time during annual training.
The Top would show up, and we'd scatter back to what we were previously doing before having blown off steam wrestling like kids.
Never pulled into the PI after a few months at sea, have you?
Former soldiers in the forum.. "unti!"
"UNIT" me and my typing.
Sheesh.
See Doc, here's another one of them.
If this continually happens, we're goinng to have a HECKUVA time finding people! All we're going to end up with are people who're constantly looking over their shoulders and wondering if their actions are going to be judged stateside and they're going to be all but useless.
(Oh, and no dig. Did I say something about stateside help? Don't remember it or its context. Feeble minded senility no doubt :) )
One of the few things we agree on, in spirit, if not in exact wording. Mixing the genders in combat situations (or in non-combat close quarters like ships) was a bad, bad idea.
However, I think that decision was an internal DoD decision (in response to political pressures), and not the result of the judiciary. Historically, the judiciary has stayed out of the military. For the most part, anyway.
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