By SARAH SMILEY

Politically Incorrect But Inspiring Nose Art

Each morning, I sit down at my computer desk searching for inspiration. I find it when I look at a picture of a half-naked Bomber Girl pinned to my bulletin board.

The sketch is from World War II, when it was popular for military men to paint art on the sides of their aircraft. I bought the picture on eBay, where I buy nearly everything that can't be found at Target.

I'm so fascinated with the fading, black-and-white drawing of a woman with big bouncy curls and round hips, I've decided to decorate our entire guest bedroom with "nose art." This is all to my husband's embarrassment, of course, because he'd much rather see the sketches duct-taped to the back of his closet door than above the bed where his mom and sister sleep when they're visiting.

Yet it is not the blatant sexuality of nose art that I've fallen in love with, but rather the nostalgia and romance it represents. More importantly, it honors the crews and missing men who once had an almost inconceivable attachment to a single airplane, so much that they named it, painted a lady on it and revered it as something more than an inanimate piece of metal.

According to the University of Arizona's online library, "Nose art has been credited with increasing morale in dismal times. Men in combat found security in attaching the name and image of a well-known personage such as Rita Hayworth, or a protective symbol such as mother to the machines that carried them into danger."

Initially, beginning with World War II, nose art was innocent enough. Men painted names and generic emblems on their planes. But, interestingly, as the intensity of the war increased and squadrons were sent father away from home - and deeper into harm's way - the more infamous illicit drawings of nude women found their way onto the noses of more than a few airplanes.

What's acceptable in wartime, however, isn't always welcomed at home so, when the crews returned with their pin-up clad airplanes, they were ordered to put clothes on the drawings. Some pilots rebelled, choosing to paint "CENSORED" across the image instead.

Now besides the fact this would never fly (excuse the pun) today, and rightly so because much of the past's nose art is highly sexist, I feel a certain respect for and connection to the history of our military when I sit at my desk and stare at Bomber Girl. The image grounds me, both in the romance and nostalgia of this organization I'm a part of, but also in the appreciation of how far our military has come with the introduction of female pilots and soldiers.

Recently, I visited the famous Cubi Point Officer's Club display at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Fla., where visitors can experience what hundreds of Marine and Navy personnel did for nearly 40 years in the Western Pacific. In a sectioned room with filtered light, patrons of today's Cubi Bar Café peruse walls of shellacked plaques and framed artwork from countless squadrons and crews.

Much of this memorabilia is politically incorrect by today's standards. The nose of a model airplane, for example, reads "Not tonight, Honey, I have to fly." But the faux pas are all but lost in the overwhelming history of the stories and of the people represented on the walls. It's as if you can hear groups of pilots laughing and slapping each other's backs, their voices echoing through time as a reminder of all who are gone from us now.

I'm not saying I fully agree with the sexualization of women in these ways, and I'm still not sure how I will eventually explain the Bomber Girl sketch to my boys when they get older. After all, I'm a modern woman, all for women's rights and the eradication of degrading sexual innuendos in our culture. I would never allow Dustin to hang an explicit calendar in our kitchen, yet I plan to decorate our guest bedroom with nose art. Seems like a double standard, I know.

But each time I see the sketch above my computer, it is in many ways an intangible - almost inexplicable - reminder of the real men and women who die for our country. Perhaps it is because the ignominious sketches help me remember that our servicemembers are real flesh-and-blood people, not mythical creatures who trudge off to war. It's a reminder of their stories, their memories and their sacrifice.

And, for me, that makes a simple black-and-white sketch very seductive.

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Sarah Smiley is the wife of a Navy pilot and daughter of a retired Navy pilot. Her syndicated column "Shore Duty" appears weekly in military and civilian newspapers across the country. Read more about Sarah at her website, SarahSmiley.com.

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