A U.S. soldier is accused of water-boarding his 4-year-old daughter because she refused to recite the alphabet.

Police in Yelm, Washington responding to a domestic disturbance call on January 31, arrested Joshua Ryan Tabor after it was discovered he had held his daughter’s head upside-down underwater.

According to court documents, police were called to Tabor’s home by neighbors who said the 27-year-old father was walking around the neighborhood drunk with his Kevlar helmet threatening to break windows.

Once at the home, police found Tabor’s daughter locked in a bathroom with bruises on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat, and when questioned by police she said, “Daddy did it.”

While being questioned by police, Tabor admitted that he and his girlfriend had held the girl down “on the counter and submerged her head into the water three or four times until the water came around her forehead and jawline,” with her face-up when her head was in the water.

He told police the punishment was given to the child because she refused to recite the alphabet.

Tabor, who is a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Washington, was released on $10,000 bail and his daughter was placed in Child Protective Services.

It is not clear if Tabor’s girlfriend was charged with a crime.

The couple has a younger child together.