LOS ANGELES – Be all that you can be – and no more.
That’s the message the owner of an adult video company wants to give women serving in the nation’s armed forces, where they can receive free breast augmentation, liposuction and other cosmetic surgery from surgeons honing their battlefield skills.
Mark Kulkis, who owns Kick Ass Pictures, on Wednesday officially launched his “Bullets Not Boobs” campaign at a press conference outside a military recruiting center in Hollywood.
Kulkis, who employs only “all natural” actresses in his films, said he will give $500 in lingerie and a day at a spa to any woman honorably discharged from the military with her natural breasts intact.
Flanked by porn star and erstwhile gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey, he presented the campaign’s first award to a 23-year-old former Army specialist from Texas for sticking with her B-sized bust during five years in the service.
“We think the military should be spending its money on bullets, not boobs,” Kulkis said. “To counter the Army’s offer of plastic beauty enhancement, I decided to offer a natural beauty enhancement.”
Military officials confirmed that their surgeons, on a very limited basis, practice reconstructive surgery skills on enlistees and their dependents if time and space is available. The military doesn’t use cosmetic surgery as a recruiting tool or publicize it among service members, said Martha Rudd, an Army spokeswoman.
Recipients must pay for their own breast implants but the surgery is covered, according to a Department of Defense statement. The department is currently reviewing its policy on elective cosmetic surgery, the statement said.
The New Yorker, which reported on the surgeries in its July 26 issue, wrote that between 2000 and 2003 Army doctors performed 96 breast enlargement surgeries on soldiers and their dependents. In the first three months of 2004, they performed 60 breast enlargement operations, the magazine reported.
Jennifer Zandstra, an Army test equipment calibrator who was honorably discharged two weeks ago from Fort Hood, Texas, was the first to contact Kulkis after a friend saw his Web site. Kulkis says four to five other women are in line to receive a similar reward.
Zandstra, who had to submit proof of her honorable discharge and a picture of her unaltered chest to Kulkis, flew to Los Angeles from her hometown of Commerce, Texas to receive her prize. Zandstra said she had heard about the possibility of free plastic surgery while in the Army, but didn’t give it much thought. Now, she plans to buy her lingerie at Victoria’s Secret.
“I’m happy with what I have. If there’s anything I want to change, I’m sure I could change it myself,” she said.