Pin-Ups for a Noble Cause
Twelve years ago, when I was a young septuagenarian, I penned a piece on an organization called “Operation Calendar.”
As the name implies, the group published calendars featuring stunning models. “A project designed to raise money for charities assisting wounded troops.”
Depictions of attractive women, “pin-up girls,” have been around since times immemorial. In military circles they have been part of warriors’ most prized personal belongings.
As I wrote twelve years ago:
They accompanied our World War I Doughboys as folded, crumpled, black-and-white images into the muddy, stinking trenches in Europe during World War I.
They resided in footlockers, wall lockers and on walls of World War II barracks. They went with our soldiers into every battlefield in that war and they came to be known as those glamorous, all-American “pin-up girls.” They were even artistically and imaginatively painted in various alluring poses on the noses of our bombers and graced the fuselages of other combat aircraft.
Twelve years later, it appears that “Operation Calendar” is no longer with us.
However, another “pin-ups” calendar caught this now-mid-octogenarian’s eye.
Fortunately, considering my age, it is not as “risqué” as the Operation Calendar one, yet it features equally beautiful ladies and serves equally worthy causes.
It is the annual, award-winning “Pin-Ups for Vets” calendar now in its 19th year and the brainchild of Gina Elise, a Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society graduate of UCLA and Founder of Pin-Ups for Vets.
Wanting to honor her late Grandpa, a World War II veteran, Elise says she drew inspiration “from the World War II pin-up girls, whose photos and paintings boosted morale for our soldiers fighting overseas.”
Thus, in 2006, she came up with the idea to recreate a nostalgic pin-up calendar that would both raise funds for veterans’ causes and, as Elise says, “would be sent to our deployed troops to help boost morale and to let them know that Americans back home are thinking of them.”
Since then, Pin-Ups for Vets — a non-profit organization – has raised funds to support VA Hospitals, ill, injured and homeless Veterans, deployed troops and military spouses.
To-date, it has donated over $120,000 to purchase state-of-the art rehabilitation equipment for VA and military hospitals nationwide. Its beautiful “volunteer Ambassadors” have visited 109 VA and military hospitals (some of them multiple times) in 46 states and the renowned Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany.
They have paid individual morale boosting visits to over 20,000 ill and injured Veterans at their bedsides, delivering gifts of appreciation.
One of the much-appreciated gifts is always the annual Pin-Ups for Vets calendar featuring beautiful female veterans.
Its 2025 calendar features thirteen outstanding female Veterans from all military Services with a combined 117 years of military service in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard.
Miracle Holthouser, “September Girl” (below), a 10-year Air Force veteran, sees the pin-up calendar as a counter narrative to the often-expressed notion that women should not or cannot serve in combat or in certain military occupations.
“You can get dolled up and you can get dirty. You can be pretty, and you can be smart, and you can be brave, all at the same time…I mean just look at the women in these calendars, they have accomplished so much,” she says.
Pin-Ups For Vets has been an unqualified success. It has received Congressional recognition. It has been honored and commended by numerous State, Veterans, military, civic and news agencies and organizations.
To order your 2025 Pin-Ups for Vets calendar, to enjoy the sight of these beautiful veterans for the next twelve months, and to contribute to a very worthwhile cause, please go to Pinupsforvets.com.
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