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The men who weild hot lead at the enemy
love hot women. That should not be a surprise to anyone, but to
some it is .
Some see pin-ups in the barracks as a
vice, but it is part of a larger virtues of--Love & Fortitude.
It is currently against the regulations
of Multi National Forces Iraq to possess any pornographic, lewd or lacivious
material.
Even pinups of girls in bikinis were
not exempt from the regulations I first read in 2005.
Of course, that has not prevented the
average infantry battalion from having close to a terrabyte of porn
saved on various hard drives and lap top computers.
And unless a committee of officers and
NCO's band together for preservation of virtue and the prevention of
vice starts scanning every drive in Iraq--the bytes of boobs will increase
exponentially.
In the PXs in Iraq, the magazines that
sell out the fastest are Maxim, Stuff, FHM, Smooth, etc. No nipples
or other parts exposed in these mags, but men who carry magazines loaded
with bullets enjoy them.
One of my business associates is a well
known bikini pin-up model. She sends freebies to any Soldier or
Marine in Iraq or Afghanistan. She is not a fan of the war on
a policy level, but truly does love the guys--and they love putting
her photos on walls.
And if the freedom of a woman to earn
a living from her God given (and surgically perfected) assets is one
of the things our enemy despises, then the presence of pin-ups around
the barracks of infantrymen is to be expected as a full color reminder
of why we fight. The Soldiers and Marines fight out of Love.
And what some see as a vice of lust by
the rough men who stand ready in the night (pin-ups of bikini clad women)
do not concern me and should not concern anyone, for they on a daily
basis exhibit the Cardinal Virtue of Fortitude .
In the Summa Theologica, Aquinas explores
the nature of Fortitude that makes it a Cardinal Virtue and finds that
it is "chiefly about death in battle."
Aquinas cites Aristotle who wrote in
the Nicomachaen Ethics:
"With what sort of terrible things,
then, is the brave man concerned? In what circumstances, then? Surely
in the noblest. Now such deaths are those in battle; for these take
place in the greatest and noblest danger. Properly, then, he will
be called brave who is fearless in face of a noble death, and of all
emergencies that involve death; and the emergencies of war are in the
highest degree of this kind."
And Fortitude is, as Augustine wrote,
"is love bearing all things readily for the sake of the object
beloved."
And if the men who visit violence with
hot lead on those who would do us harm love hot chicks, then I say let
them display pictures of their beloved.
Do not be troubled by the purported vices
of the rough men, rather praise their virtues for we sleep soundly in
our beds because of the virtue they display on the fields many fear
to tread.
And judging by the pin-up posters, they
do it out of love of the female form.
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