2 Campers Allegedly Attacked by Marines

PORTLAND, Ore. — A couple on a camping trip inadvertently pitched their tent in the middle of a Marine Corps bivouac, where they say two sergeants attacked them, beating the man and raping the woman.

Both soldiers were arrested.

Henry Thompson, 33, said he and his 23-year-old friend headed for Clear Lake campground in the Mt. Hood National Forest late Friday.

After setting up their tent in the dark, they found they had camped in the middle of a Marine Corps recruitment outing.

Thompson and his friend sat around a campfire with several Marines. “They told us we were the safest people on Earth because they had 180 Marines up there,” he said Saturday.

Thompson said he and his friend went to their own tent after the men started drinking heavily.

Later in the night, he said, he was awakened by a noise and was confronted by a man he identified as Sgt. Rudolph Jackson, one of the two men arrested.

Thompson said Jackson beat him severely, covered his eyes with thick green tape and taped him to a tree, while another man dragged his friend into the bushes.

Jackson, 29, of Gresham, Ore., and Sgt. Clinton Allan Bergmann, 24, of Vancouver, Wash., were scheduled to be arraigned today on charges of assault, kidnapping and rape.