Military Perk Looks a Bit Out of Place

While serving in Iraq, Jessica Cook had no idea that risking her life with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division made her eligible for a free boob job, courtesy of the United States military.

Now back in civilian life, Cook heard the news a couple of weeks ago from a family friend. The friend said a Los Angeles company, in protest of the military perk, was offering $500 worth of lingerie and a full spa treatment to any honorably discharged woman who could prove she was “natural.”

“I went online to check out the offer,” says Cook, a 22-year-old Downey High graduate, “and realized it was from a porn company.”

This is L.A., after all.

“I think it’s wrong for someone to cut themselves open to conform to some mythical ideal of beauty,” says Mark Kulkis, owner of Kick Ass Pictures. That’s the home of Mary Carey, the former gubernatorial candidate whose campaign platform called for taxing breast implants.

Kulkis guarantees that all his “actresses” are 100% natural. After reading about the military’s busy cosmetic surgeons in the New Yorker magazine, he was as morally outraged as a porn king can possibly be.

“Personnel in all four branches of the military and members of their immediate families can get face-lifts, nose jobs, breast enlargements, liposuction or any other kind of elective cosmetic alteration, at taxpayer expense,” the New Yorker wrote in July.

Kulkis, in a publicity augmentation brainstorm, launched his “Bullets Not Boobs” campaign last month.

Army vet Jennifer Zandstra of Texas was first to take him up on his offer, and soon Kulkis’ mail basket was filled with comments and inquiries.

“We applaud your efforts,” wrote the director of the Humantics Foundation, saying she has spent nine years warning women about the dangers of implants.

Angela Smith, a discharged Navy vet, wrote to say cosmetic surgery isn’t widely advertised to those in uniform.

But soldiers “uncomfortable with their bodies” could easily find a surgeon who, in the interest of national security, would restore their self-confidence.

We could be just a few tummy tucks away from tracking down Bin Laden.

A Cpl. O’Neill, saying she is stationed in Iraq, sent Kulkis the following:

“I am behind you 100%, first of all, because I believe natural boobs are the greatest and second because I think it is ridiculous that the Army pays for boob implants. C’mon!!!”

Cpl. O’Neill said she’s scheduled to return home to California next month, and would love to participate in the “Bullets Not Boobs” program.

Army spokeswoman Martha Rudd told me the military offered free elective surgery so doctors could stay in practice should they have to treat disfigured soldiers.

She claimed elective surgery wasn’t all that common.

But the New Yorker reported that 60 breast augmentations and 231 liposuctions had been performed in the first three months of this year.

I suppose you could argue that a skinnier soldier makes a smaller target, but the advantage would be negated if the breasts were pumped up. Then again, maybe the breast augmentation is meant to entice more men to enlist.

Whatever the case, Jessica Cook is proud to have served, albeit a tad leery about getting involved with a porn video company.

“But soldiers are all about getting stuff for free,” the tall redhead told me in Ventura, where she’s in school on the GI Bill.

She sent Kulkis an e-mail saying she was an “Iraqi Freedom Vet” who is “proudly all natural.” He asked if she’d like to perform in a movie, but she respectfully declined, although she agreed to tape her views on the subject of plastic makeovers.

“I couldn’t get braces,” she said, “but I could have gotten a boob job?”

She might have given it a thought if the implants were bulletproof. A supply shortage at the start of the war left Cook and other soldiers in vests that had no protective plates in them.

Cook was in and around Baghdad until August of last year. The plates never arrived, but she made it through unscathed.

So why shouldn’t she grab $500 worth of lingerie and another $500 worth of pampering at the spa of her choice?

“I understand this is a publicity stunt for them,” she said of Kulkis’ video company. “But soldiers are getting substandard medical care while they’re offering cosmetic surgery. At some point, somebody has to say it’s not right. Why does it take a porn company to point it out?”

Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com and read previous columns at latimes.com/lopez