The U.S. military is in damage-control mode after a video surfaced of Marines urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.By Judy Royal, ReutersCAMP LEJEUNE, North Carolina - A U.S. Marine pleaded guilty on Wednesday to urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and then posing for photographs in a scene captured in a widely circulated video on the Internet and denounced by world leaders.
Follow @NBCNewsUS (https://twitter.com/NBCNewsUS) Staff Sgt. Edward W. Deptola said he knew desecrating the corpses and posing for the "trophy photographs" was wrong and he offered no excuse for the behavior during his court martial at North Carolina's Camp Lejeune.
"I was in a position to stop it and I did not," said Deptola, a native of Southold, New York, and married father of two.
Although the judge presiding at Deptola's trial recommended a stiffer sentence, the maximum penalty he will face under the terms of a pre-trial agreement is a reduction in rank to sergeant.
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