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.
Well, now I just feel dumb......
Well said. Partying with civilians is one thing - getting half naked or showing your tits to your co-workers is another. There is a time and place for most anything - but this was neither.
"I honestly don't know enough about military discipline to know what she (or the others involved) should get based on military rules. And dishonorable discharge was probably too harsh of an opinion."
Nope. It's appropriate. If a military man and woman can be dishonorably discharged for engaging in an adulterous affair, we can discharge those engaging in immoral acts in a foreign nation.
My grandparents' generation made examples of these sorts of people and their generation before them. They turned out decent, moral human beings as a rule. We can't keep letting this stuff slide if we want to have the world consider us a "Christian" nation whose morals are above and beyond others.
As to Iraq and the Arab world, when trying to win hearts to our side, how will it look to show this as an example of what happens when women are liberated? And what do Iraqi fathers think about this? Do they want their daughters dating American servicemen if they think their daughters may be plied with liquor and goaded into this kind of infantile, paganish behavior? How many of those men had wedding bands on? Would an American man such as these make a decent husband, the kind you can depend on to be faithful?
Frankly, as an American woman, I am embarassed by this and I certainly can't be persuaded now that this behavior is not systematic in the military.
This, combined with other stories, such as the drunk idiots in the Baghdad zoo shooting a lion because an idiot drunken soldier decided he wanted to play with it and got bit. Baad lion? Couple that with the other more high profile scandal and you've made an impression on the people. They have the impression that we are hedonistic hypocrites. Are we going to say this is the behavior of a few bad apples? Are conservatives now justifying this behavior? I see the slippery slope of moral decay creeping even into the republican party, based on some of the replies here.
I say FLOG THEM.
"Here it is Sunday morning and you are berating folks who were in Combat for a year; and at a low moment of recreation; Who are you to criticize?. I do not care what the Islamokazis think or do. Why dont you take a trip to the AOR to document such poor behavior? Are you in the right forum?"
Are YOU in the right forum? I was under the impression republicans at least pretended to stand for morality. Are we there to terrorize and corrupt the people, or are we there to civilize and democratize them? To show them that our nation is great and that they can aspire to freedom and democracy too? Is freedom now mud wrestlng and flashing private parts at hooting and hollering members of the opposite sex? Are our military men a bunch of pigs and women a bunch of sleezy whores? Is that what we represent? Is our military free to engage in the most hedonistic and immoral behavior to "let off steam" when a basketball game could suffice? Whatever happened to "gentlemen?"
"They're of the same class, and probably better. It's just that your grandparents didn't have camcorders and an anti-military media to worry about."
Not according to my great grandfather, who was in France during WW2, or my Grandfather, who was in Korea. Sure, they may have watched women dancing and singing, but nothing like this. When democrats are in office, conservative forums are filled with comments about how the good old days weren't like these hedonistic days. Now your guy is in office and all of a sudden, our elders are reduced to being ungentlemanly sex crazed perverts. Why is it that my grandpa doesn't cuss, turns the station in disgust when penis enlargement commercials are on? Why doesn't he watch "Sex and the City" or "Will and Grace?" Could it be that his morals are better than thyose of today?
I can't BELIEVE you actually think morals are better today than 50 years ago.
Haven't you old geezers ever been young, or is it your memory that is failing. Sounds like they are all having a good time, maybe too good, but I think the damn squeelers with the cameras should be punished.
"I'm sure your grandfather's contemporaries were "on the prowl" during their "young and foolish" years.
The diffence is that they were more discreet."
Ok. Discreet. They were discreet because THERE WAS SHAME IN THAT SORT OF BEHAVIOR. Sex was something private, between two people, not a roomfull of men and a couple of trashy whores. How many American women would have engaged in this behavior 50-70 years ago? Why, oh why, in the foremost republican forum in the nation, are there not howls of disapproval? Are you still the republican party? have you dropped your moral vision of a decent America and adopted the morals of the "Arnold" generation?
I wouldn't worry about NOW - they have made themselves irrelevant to real women.
I don't attend church but on resurrection day. Church does not make a Christian, a Christian makes a church. My church is in my heart. Modern churches are filled with folks who go to church on Sunday, then a sinnin' on Monday.
This is just an outrage.Why if I had been there,I would have to jump in there and break them apart if it meant getting down in the mud and wrestling the both of them to the ground.I couldn't just stand there and allow this filthy orgy to go on.
Go tell your husband I'm on to him.
No, but a man who thinks what happened here is in any way unusual or immoral may be off his meds.
So9
LOL
I totally agree with you. I've been very surprised that so many on here have defended the actions of these soldiers. And it's worrisome that those involved weren't able to look ahead and see what problems it could cause them personally and making the military look like immature, sex-starved adolescents. I just don't understand how it can be defended.
What about women who think that?
"How well do you think stories like this go over in the Muslim world when they see American female soldiers are behaving like this while "occupying" a fellow Muslim country? Besides winning the physical battles, America must win the battle of minds in the Middle East. Our soldiers are fighting in part of the world where Americans are seen as debauched and immoral. Stories like this can only add more fuel to the anti-American propoganda machine. These soldiers are the representative of America overseas. This was not the best way to blow off steam, IMO."
You are one of the few who "get it."
Apparantly female soldiers, judging by how many get pregant, are merely prostitutes for our troops. Hey everyone! America sends whores over there to service all the men, even the Iraqis in prison! Woo hoo! Wouldn't you guys just love for your daughters to go serve their country, enter into a party and have a bunch of horny men ply them with drinks and cheer for them to hop onstage and pull their clothes off?
My mother always told me "a stiff --- has no conscience."
Do we see that in action here on FR?
Of course, soldiers are expected to act like soldiers. But soldiers are not expected to act like celibate monks. Soldiers are not robots. Soldiers are humans. When has there ever been a celibate Army?
There has to be a local order from the commander for that to happen. It usually only happens when in a training environment or when the NCO is in the direct rating chain of command and is in a position to influence the subordinate's effectiveness rating. Otherwise, if the NCO had taken it to court martial he might have been acquitted.
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