FORT ASHBY, W.Va. -- Outside Evans Dairy Dip, where ice cream season officially opened yesterday, Rick and Debbie Walizer expressed shock that the soldier in a front-page newspaper picture from Iraq was a hometown acquaintance.

"It looked like her," Debbie Walizer said. "I never dreamed it was."

The photo of Pvt. Lynndie England, smiling and posing with hooded, naked Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad, is one of several at the heart of a worldwide furor over alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops.

Six members of a military police unit, including at least two from Pennsylvania, have been charged with mistreating prisoners. England, who has not been charged, reportedly has been reassigned to Fort Bragg, N.C.

England's family in this small town, 13 miles from Cumberland, Md., has found itself besieged by reporters and has changed the message of its answering machine to say they are screening their calls.

Destiny Goin, England's best friend, said the family has stopped talking to the news media following an article published in Friday's Baltimore Sun focusing on the allegations against England and the other soldiers.

"I love her, and I'm not ashamed of her," Goin said.

England was deployed in February 2003. Goin said she last saw her in December when England returned home for a few days' leave. Goin said England had pneumonia and told her that instead of receiving adequate medical care, she had been given children's doses of medication and ended up back in Iraq with double pneumonia.

Though there have been reports that England is pregnant and engaged to fellow soldier Spc. Charles Graner, of Uniontown, one of the six soldiers charged with abuse, Goin said England's family has been told no such thing.

Goin said England's family talks to her occasionally, but she never gets specific details of any allegations against her.

"She's a very sweet girl," said Debbie Walizer, who has known the England family for years. They attended the same church and Lynndie England has been on the prayer list at Walizer's new church for months because of her service in Iraq.

A first-grade teacher, Walizer said she was appalled by news media reports of what had happened to some Iraqi prisoners.

"I can't imagine she'd be guilty of any of this," she said. "Maybe she was in a position where she didn't have much choice but to follow."

The Army investigation of abuse of Iraqi prisoners, reported in The New Yorker magazine by Seymour Hersh, described the photographs of Graner and England in a story titled "Torture at Abu Ghraib."

"In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing to the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides.

"In another, England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid. There is another photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid. Near them stands Graner, smiling; his arms crossed ..."

At Graner's house in Uniontown, a stone with white lettering sits in a weedy flowerbed. "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to see the Lord, until he comes and showers righteousness on you," the inscription says.

Graner's friend, Thomas Zavada, last night said he'd heard weeks ago that Graner was "involved in something with a prisoner that wasn't right."

But Zavada said he was shocked to hear that Graner had been charged with humiliating Iraqi prisoners.

"It's not the American way. ... We're not supposed to treat people like that," he said.

He met Graner about six years ago when Graner, his wife and two children moved into a home on Johnson Avenue.

About three years ago, the couple split up and the children went to live with their mother, he said.

He said his acquaintance had done a stint in the Marines, got out and then enlisted in the Army Reserve. His civilian job was as a state prison guard at the State Correctional Institution Greene.

Neighbors along Johnson Avenue said they were surprised by the allegations.

"I wouldn't think he was that type of person," said Anna Marie Fisher, 81, who noted the Bible verse on the rock outside his home.

Graner and five other members of the 372nd Military Police Company, based in Cresaptown, Md., face criminal charges of assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of detainees.

The others are Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits from Hyndman, Bedford County; Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, of Buckingham, Va.; and Sgt. Javal Davis, Spc. Sabrina Harman and Spc. Megan Ambuhl, all of Maryland.