Playboy launches 'Operation Playmate'
| April 01, 2003
Los Angeles-based Playboy, the world's oldest skin magazine, is launching "Operation Playmate" to help perk up troops by allowing them to e-mail the centrefolds who will send back autographed photos of themselves. But "Operation Playmate," the brainchild of Playboy's colourful founder Hugh Hefner, won't be sending the boys any nude pictures, spokesman Bill Farley told AFP. "The boys will be able to send an e-mail to their favourite Playmate and she'll send them a head shot of themselves or of them wearing shirts and T-shirts," he said.
The Playboy's bunny foray into the conflict in Iraq is not his first wartime role. For one year starting in November 2001, the magazine conducted an "Operation Playmate" to help pep up US troops fighting the US war against terrorism in Afghanistan. During the first Gulf War, top US General Norman Schwarzkopf called Playboy's first "Operation Playmate" a "major morale boost for our troops," Playboy said. And in the Vietnam War in the 1960s, many Playboy magazine subscriptions were diverted from US addresses to soldiers fighting in Southeast Asia, Farley said. In 1966, Hefner even despatched Playmate of the Year Jo Collins to the combat zone where she flew aboard a helicopter gunship the troops nicknamed "The Playboy Special" on a "hazardous goodwill mission," Farley said.
The Playmates will personally sign their photographs and reply "as expeditiously as possible" to the requests, the magazine said. "Hef has said we'll keep this latest effort going as long as there is a call for it," Farley said. "I don't know his views on this conflict, but when it comes to the troops, he feels that wee should support them 100 percent |
US girlie magazine Playboy is joining the US-led war in Iraq with plans to use its famous Playmate centrefolds to boost troop morale on the battlefield.
"We don't want to send any nude images that would be offensive to our Arab allies in the Middle East, but we wanted to give the guys something else to think about to get the imagination going." 
Under the latest scheme, soldiers or members of their family can e-mail the magazine and – by providing their service number – can request signed pictures of their favourite model free of charge. 