Ahira's Hangar

Marines Pose For Beefcake Calendar
Calendar To Raise Funds For Wounded Vets

POSTED: 6:44 am EDT October 13, 2006
NEW YORK -- A group of Marines and ex-Marines who fought in Iraq -- including two wounded there -- is featured in a beefcake calendar being sold to help wounded veterans.

"It's a stopgap effort to help people where government programs leave off," said Rudy Reyes, who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan and is on the calendar's cover. "This is a way for citizens to help citizens."

The "America's Heroes" calendar is being sold by Freedom is Not Free, a San Diego-based nonprofit group that helps injured service members and their families with such expenses as travel, mortgage and utility bills and special beds for burn victims.

Reyes and the other men who appear in the glossy 2007 lineup served in Iraq in Marine reconnaissance units. Sgt. James Wright, 31, who lost his hands and part of his leg, appears on the back cover in full uniform, saluting with what's left of his right arm.

Several members of the group, promoting the calendar on a cross-country tour, said Thursday they have medical conditions, ranging from combat stress-related symptoms to injuries to their feet, knees, hips and backs from carrying combat loads of more than 200 pounds.

When service members come back, "many don't have the financial or emotional support to get back to daily life," said former Sgt. Michael Saucier, 24, of Prior Lake, Minn., who served two Iraq tours and is now a carpenter's apprentice in Lake Tahoe, Nev.

All but one of the men had to be coaxed to pose shirtless for the calendar.

"I wasn't afraid to pose. This is the new-generation Marines," quipped Sean Mickle, 31, a Marine platoon sergeant at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

The $14.99 calendar promises that "100 percent of proceeds aid wounded heroes and their families."

Production expenses were covered by private donations to Freedom is Not Free, founded last year by entrepreneur David Dominguez.

"There is a need," he said. "Some Iraq veterans are so depressed when they get back they can't even fill out the papers required for benefits."

The calendar is the brainchild of his client Jean Hamerslag, a California advertising executive who suggested that the organization's fundraising needed something that would grab the public's attention.

"Sex," she said with a giggle.
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed
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Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Uh...I dunno.

On the one hand, charity is always nice. On the other, why isn't the government helping those maimed by its policies?

And why aren't some of the injuries these guys have causing uproar about the treatment/equippage/whatever of the soldiers?

And of course there is the feel-good factor too...damn...I'm a cynic.

--A ____________________________________

A sense of the sardonic preserves a man from believing in his own pretensions. -The Sayings Of Maud'Dib<i></i>

Having worked for the VA for nearly 19 years, I can tell you that we never get enough money and as a result there is almost always a lag time before hurt veterans start getting their benefits.

There always seems to be enough money for DOD - but never enough for the VA.

In our hospital we rent out some of our operating rooms and endoscopy suites to a nearby hospital, just to help with the operating budget.

It's crazy - plenty of money to fly men and women to other continents so they can be physically and mentally maimed - not enough money to pay enough people to immediately process their paperwork!

In addition, often the families of the wounded need help. The VFW recently held a huge fundraiser in this area to help the toddler son of an Iraq War vet. The father might not ever have a job again due to his wounds - the other vets raised money so that the baby could have health insurance.
The father (a true hero who threw himself on a bomb to spare his squad) will get his health care for the rest of his life due to his combat wounds - the family will not. And that is a huge hole in the system.

Unfortunately, we do not have enough money for all of the vets who want care (POW's, service connected medical conditions, and low income get highest priority - but there are plenty of vets who do not fall into those three categories who still want care and we cannot provide for them) - much less having enough funding left over to take care of the spouses/widows/widowers and minor children - whom ideally we would also be able to serve.

Plenty of money for the killing - not enough for the healing.
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Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Isn't that always the way of it?

Their policies and decisions are maiming people, but once they're maimed, well, thanks for your time. *shakes head*

--A ____________________________________

A sense of the sardonic preserves a man from believing in his own pretensions. -The Sayings Of Maud'Dib<i></i>