A Kunsan Air Base military policeman has been given a bad-conduct discharge for publishing an online guide to using prostitutes in the Philippines and a schedule of security patrols outside the air base.
Tech. Sgt. Christopher Bowman, 8th Security Forces Squadron, also received a six-month jail sentence and a reduction in rank to E-1 during the special court-martial. He pleaded guilty to all charges against him, which included leaving South Korea without permission and being absent without leave.
“Anyone could log on and look at it. That was the problem,” prosecutor Capt. Derek Rowe said Thursday of Bowman’s online postings. “They’re pretty serious offenses, and they were taken seriously and the punishment reflects that.”
Rowe said the case, which concluded last month, was unusual because Bowman had been in the military for 17 years.
According to court records, Bowman spent three days in the Philippines in May 2006 without submitting a required force protection plan for travel to the country. He also took 12 days of unauthorized leave, Rowe said.
Bowman did not testify during the court-martial, but he did give an unsworn statement.
Rowe said Bowman posted a detailed guide to hiring prostitutes in the Philippines on a Yahoo chat group. The guide contained instructions for obtaining sex through bar fines, or fees paid to bars for the right to take a woman outside.
Bowman, who was part of the security force that patrolled the area outside Kunsan, also posted the force’s patrol schedule and techniques online between January 2006 and January 2007. The security force conducted sweeps outside the base after curfew hours to make sure servicemembers were not violating curfew.
Rowe said he didn’t know how many people used the directions in the guides, but people viewed it and posted comments in a chat group.
Bowman was court-martialed after his supervisor contacted investigators early this year. Rowe said the information Bowman posted was taken off the Internet.
