Filth of an adult nature ahead. Not good enough filth to get me new readers or anything, just good enough to get me kicked out of my Church. Or, at least, looked at disapprovingly.

Working down on getting rid of my man-crush on Jeff Harrell, I checked the RSS to find out that now he's doing Friday-night buttblogging. Amazingly enough, a rush of memories went through my mind. I recognize that butt.

So, as I was chatting with Alli, I told her that there was a story behind that butt. She gives me the usual, "it's a long story, but you're not gonna tell me, ya tease." And, most of the time, she's right. But not tonight. There were too many great memories to not tell the story.
The Bronze Star Media

So we're in Iraq and we gotta pass the time somehow. So we got these girly magazines from the PX. Maxim and Stuff and, um, stuff. So, you'll see pictures from Iraq where people have the wall plastered with these.

Yeah, I wasn't like that, but my friends were. they had a wall FULL of these girl's pictures. Honest, my friends. Not me, just my friends.

They were kind of our way of getting back to the real world. You'd see a fine girl, and be reminded how good America was. And...sigh unrealistic. (Thank YOU Photoshop)

Anyways, you got to know them pretty well. Catherine Bell was generally accepted as doing more for the Soldiers that anybody else in the USO. By the time we got back to the States, we found out that you could get most of these magazine sent to your APOAE address for free.

Gee, thanks for telling us.

Like I was saying, you got to know the girls in the pictures pretty well, while you were going from extreme tension to unrivaled boredom. It was pictures like this that kept us going, for some reason. And not that kind of "going," I mean, our morale. It might sound pretty chauvinistic, but pin-up girls work for us. Only God knows why.

I studied the pictures better than I did my textbooks, but I had reasons. There was no sweetheart for me back home, so I felt pretty okay deluding myself to the idea that I'll get one of these perfect women. Hopeless, I know; but, it was my dream.

That particular butt was one of my favorites. I remember it, because, even though I had my own personal stack of filth, there weren't that many ladies I found all that attractive. Sure, in the pornographic was, yes; I am a heterosexual man. But, not that many that I'd want to date.

In fact, from the breadth and width of 10 months of borderline pr0n, there were but three that I would consider women I'd want to actually have a relationship with. The afore-mentioned Catherine Bell, Lisa Dergan, and...that Russian chick. She was from Russia, I think. Somewhere like that. Not Indiana, I know that.

Delusions sometimes help us get through the days. That photo was one of the small pleasures I could take while battling the heat, the sand, the exhaustion, the war effort, the boredom, and my own personal depression. That, 100° coffee, Iraqi cigarettes, illegal chicken, Marine's contraband ice, and the occasional Black & Mild. I was a sinner.

Oh, and for those of you wondering, Cuban cigars aren't all that. I guess. Might be because the concept of humidors goes out the window when you're smoking something that's stored in a desert. Quite honestly, those Cuban cigars tasted like butt. (Sorry about that. Had to be done.)

I thought about posting this picture for a while. As you know, I've very anti-porn, anti-linking to porn (even though I talk a good game). As I was working through this...there's just no faster way to bring back the memories, than with a picture. If I took a straw poll, in the Summer of 2003, of just which picture was most popular with most of the men in Iraq and Kuwait, I think I would get a good percentage saying that very picture. It's just something you remember.

status: published
lastmod: '2006-11-08T15:05:41.000Z'
author: John Stansbury
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