Female soldiers will face NJP for nude photos

Female soldiers will face NJP for nude photos
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 8, 2006

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Female Kentucky National Guard soldiers who allegedly posed nude for pictures before being sent to Iraq will face nonjudicial, administrative sanctions rather than courts-martial, the Army said.

The women were not suspended and were "busy supporting the war effort," Maj. Jay Adams, chief of public affairs for the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), told The Courier-Journal of Louisville on Tuesday.

Administrative sanctions can include measures such as docking soldiers' pay or confining them to barracks. Adams said he could not release details because of federal privacy restrictions.

The Courier-Journal reported in September that the Army was investigating whether women assigned to the 410th Quartermaster Unit, based in Danville, had brought discredit to the military by agreeing to be photographed.

The newspaper said it had obtained a compact disc containing 232 photographs of at least a half-dozen nude and seminude women posing with military rifles and covering their breasts with American flag decals.

The unit shipped out for Iraq on Aug. 26. Eleven of the 107 soldiers in the unit are women.

Lt. Col. Phil Miller, a spokesman for the Kentucky Guard, said Tuesday that "as far as the leadership of the Kentucky National Guard is concerned, this incident is now closed."

Ellie