Michelle Manhart was discharged from the military today for her nude photos in Playbay magazine. Apparently the discharge was an honorable one according to Manhart herself.
Links to the pics are here if you are interested in studying such military matters.
I don’t know really what to make of this story. Clearly we like to support the troops, but this kind of support is not normally what we have in mind. The only question I care about is what affect her posing in Playboy magazine has on the morale in her unit. Would you want to be taking enemy fire in a fighter jet with Michelle Manhart? Or perhaps the better question is would you want your son to be there? And could she be effective as a drill sergeant anymore?
An Air Force drill sergeant and former Iowa National Guard member who posed nude for Playboy magazine has been removed from active duty, she said Wednesday. Whether that amounts to an honorable discharge, as Michelle Manhart also says, is unclear.
Manhart, who appeared in a six-page spread in Playboy’s February issue, said she got word Friday that she was removed from “extended active duty” and was also told that she was demoted in rank from staff sergeant to senior airman.
“I’m disappointed in our system,” Manhart told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “They went too far with it.”
Manhart said that being removed from duty meant that she reverted to her Air National Guard status and that she submitted a “resignation” to the Guard, which she said is pending. Manhart was a member of the Iowa Air National Guard before going on extended active duty.
Manhart offered The AP a copy of a signed “request and authorization for separation” form that indicates her “character of service” was “honorable.” It is not clear whether the form is an official discharge order.
See also Say Anything, Gone Hollywood, Pirate’s Cove, and Polyblog.
[tags]michelle+manhart, playboy+photos, discharge, nude, pictures[/tags]
February 14th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Doesn’t seem like a very good idea for a serving member of the military to pose for pics like that if they wanted to keep on serving. Maybe she didn’t. Everywhere she went on an Air force Base for the rest of her career, and everyone she interacted with, you’d never know who might be thinking”hey, didn’t I see her nekkid once?”, and maybe treat her a little different (like it or not)? She would have had to have known that…I hope. Maybe the Air Force had something like that in mind when it discharged her, dunno. Maybe they figured she might not get the genuine respect she would need for the things the Air Force would want her to do in the future. I just can’t help thinking she kinda knew how this would go and chose to do it anyway for reasons of her own.
February 14th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
That makes a lot of sense, IM1. And clearly a good career move considering the attention, assuming that is what she wants. Of course, playboy models aren’t necessarily the brightest bulbs for considering the consequences of their actions - why we don’t see a “PHDs of Harvard” pictorial. Umm, not that I would look…
February 15th, 2007 at 7:16 am
The Air force was clearly unfair. Nude is not lewd, she certainly has nothing to be ashamed of and if the Airforce was thinking clearly, consider this…a recruiter says to a potential “Not all DI’s look like this, but, you never know”.
Watch those enlistments rise!
February 15th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Rodger, you have a point - but can you imagine a batch of recent high school graduates training with her? I’m not sure she would command the respect she would need. Now if she did recruiting…. (I’m not sure it would be just enlistments rising!)
That being said, I wonder if the same thing would have happened if she hadn’t posed with her uniform?
McCain, can you find a pastie, or something for this picture? Isn’t this a family site?
February 15th, 2007 at 8:00 am
McCain - not Harvard - but perhaps Yale (Yikes - I hope that 1992 “Hot Chemisty with the Babes of Yale Pharmacology” calendar doesn’t surface!)
February 15th, 2007 at 8:03 am
she knew the rules of the military before she posed for playboy don;t feel sorry for her she got what she deserved
February 15th, 2007 at 8:56 am
If she truly wanted to stay in the military, if she was truly dedicated to it, she wouldn’t have taken this chance. It would clearly have an effect on her leadership, as men AND women would not look at her the same anymore. There would always be questions. When you’re on the battlefield, you cannot afford for people to see you as anything but the commander of the moment. Besides, if women want to be in combat, it seems to me they would not want to debase themselves to become a sex object. They want to retain an “equal” stance. That doesn’t make sense to me. I think she may have abused her military ties to gain a moment of fame, hoping for a job interview elsewhere in modeling or entertainment. To me that’s the only reason someone would take this chance. I believe she was ready to take that chance. As we have seen with American Idol, some people will do anything to become famous.
February 15th, 2007 at 9:07 am
as a former military person myself, I feel that the airforce has it’s collective head up a certain oriffice ! And as usual they are not going to come out smelling like roses! When are these idiots going to realize that people are going to be people no matter what antiquated ( so called ) ” moral values” a few idiots want to try to inforce! Along this same line, I personaly know a young lady who took a job as a cocktail waitress in a gentlemans club who the airforce discharged for ” lewd conduct, unbecoming” Maybe if we paid our military what they deserve, (other than the officers) they wouldn’t look for other means of making a buck!
February 15th, 2007 at 10:41 am
The Military holds its people to a higher standard then the civilian world, and for good reason, she is not the first AF female to be discharged for posing nude for playboy. I joined the AF in 1980 and in the 90’s another female posed for playboy and was discharged for wearing her uniform in the layout. I spent many years trying to be taken seriously as an NCO because I was a female, to have her throw away what many of us before her worked hard to achieve (respect, equal opportunities, etc.) for women in the military, makes me question if she deserved to wear the uniform in the first place. I am glad she has been discharged though I would have prefered she receive an Other than Honorable.
February 15th, 2007 at 11:23 am
AF - good points from your womanly perspective.
Rick - the airforce exists to win wars, not for social engineering. So whether “people are people” kind of begs the question, which is what is right for the military.
Roger - Same thing… I agree nude photography is not leud, but that isn’t the point. The question is whether her subsequent presence hurts the performance of the people around her. And also see AF’s different point.
Jo - Your theory sounds the most plausible to me. She was interviewed on television last week and she completely knows what she is doing.
Mike - thanks for the visit.
MBT - the photo helped me make a little plug for a partner website. And she IS a news story, after all.
February 15th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Bottom line we are ambassadors at all times. It matters not if it was lewd or not. We are required to act accordingly at all times. The questionwe must ask ourselves is “was her conduct becoming or unbecoming of the uniform?” The answer is obviuosly “no.” If she had posed minus the uniform I might be a tad more forgiving. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with Playboy, but she executed a major mismanagement of judgement and it makes me wonder if she was ever truly deserving of her rank and/or position.