Cross into the Nude

USAF Drill Sergeant Michelle Manhart was relieved of duty, pending investigation, for giving new meaning to her job title.

Manhart, a Staff Sergeant with 13 years in the Air Force, apparently exercising the freedoms she joined the military to fight for, posed in Playboy, nude and semi-nude, with and without her dog tags.

You can be all you can be, unless you happen to be gay or naked.

I certainly don’t begrudge USAF’s investigation of the February issue of Playboy. I hope they look beyond Manhart’s life-long dream of posing in the premier nudie magazine, and decide that they need her expertise as a grinder of young souls, which are needed to bake the bread of democracy. Especially what with President Bush sending a surge of finely ground military forces into Iraq. Notwithstanding that a 15% increase in troops is really more of a dribble than a surge.

If every solder whose actions did not “comply with the Air Force's core values of integrity,” was relieved of duty, we’d have a ludicrously understaffed military, instead of just a ridiculously understaffed one.

America is beautiful place. A country where women and men can earn money for being photographed in their birthday suits. And I can’t help but think that we wouldn’t be having this conversation if we changed Michelle to Michael, and Playboy to Playgirl.

If USAF kicks Manhart out on her exposed derriere, the terrorist will have won.