When Kara Martin joined the Marine Corps, her hobbies were sports, drag racing, and working on cars. She didn’t know what her job would be, but an aptitude test placed her as a mechanic.
She was trained to work on aircraft equipment and sent to Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom, the only female mechanic in her squadron. Now, 10 years later, she is Miss December in a World War II throwback pinup calendar to benefit veterans.
‘VETERANS ROW’ HOMELESS ENCAMPMENT AT THE VA CLEANED UP
“I grew up telling myself that I could do anything I set my mind to, and I was going to be a mechanic,” said Martin, 32, adding that she had the same mindset when becoming a pinup girl.
“Calendar auditions were open, and I just submitted myself and hoped I could get into it. I was the last one picked out of hundreds of applications,” she said.
Pin-ups for VetsPin-Ups for Vets is a charity that started in 2006 when Gina Elise decided to do something to help veterans coming back from Iraq with terrible injuries. She recalled the WWII era when soldiers had pinup calendars of stars like Betty Grable to boost morale during wrenching battles. Some pilots even had their dream girls painted on the noses of aircraft, she said.
So to boost morale today, Elise donned wigs and clothing from the 1940s and photographed herself for a calendar. At first, it was just going to be one year, but the concept took off, and she continued as the sole model for each month until 2014, when female veterans were tapped.
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“They would see me visiting the VA hospital patients with the calendars and started asking me if they could volunteer,” Elise said of her future models. “They wanted it as a way to give back.”
Now in its 16th year, the sale of Pin-Ups for Vets calendars has raised $90,000 for rehabilitation equipment at VA hospitals, along with care packages to overseas military and hospitalized stateside veterans who have no local family members.
Pin-Ups for VetsThe models are all veterans selected in a yearly casting call based largely upon their service. The women are of all ages and nationalities and from every branch of the military. They have had jobs ranging from doctor to technician to Black Hawk pilot.
Posing as Miss March is extremely personal for Jamie Wyatt, 51, who is the first female in the military from a family history of service. Her father served in Vietnam, and her grandfather Charles Rogy and his three brothers were in WWII. Rogy was ejected from a downed jet and was captured by the Nazis, who placed him in a brutal prisoner of war camp for a year.
“I thought that he would’ve gotten a kick out of it and certainly my grandmother, too, who was very posh,” said Wyatt, a former Navy JAG officer. “They would’ve been proud. I’m not one of these people who like my picture taken, so it really took me out of my comfort zone.”
Pin-Ups for VetsModel Vanessa Dance, 50, was an Army doctor based in both Kuwait and Iraq in 2004 and saw soldiers come back with horrific injuries from bomb blasts. She is now in private practice and was excited to dress up as a glamorous 1940s pinup and be part of the calendar as Miss July.
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“They do a really good job of using that WWII style to create this,” she said. “A lot of our veterans in that age group see it and remember when they were in the military.”
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