A Tennessee woman goes from Navy pilot to military calendar pin-up

During World War II, portraits of curvaceous pin-up models were painted on the noses of many Allied planes, while posters of Hollywood stars like Betty Grable – whose famous gams were insured for a million dollars – were plastered on barracks walls.

The beguiling decorations acted as a “GI morale booster” and were intended to “remind young men of what they were fighting for,” as the military history blog Together We Served puts it.

But while two-dimensional depictions of women (including Margaret Polk, namesake of the B17 bomber known as the “Memphis Belle”) added patriotic flair to the fuselages of fighters and bombers, actual three-dimensional women on the planes were unknown. In fact, women were not allowed to fly on U.S. combat crews until 1993.

The discrepancy doesn’t bother Jenn Bennie of Collierville, an Iraq War veteran and Marine pilot who was trained in the “Top Gun” style and is the October model in the 2025 edition of “Pin-Ups for Vets,” a calendar that recruits military veterans to the glamorous ” Nose Art” and recreating World War II poster poses to raise funds for veterans’ health care.