Updating the calendar girl
Published: June 12, 2010
The calendar girl is now a mother, but pregnancy and parenthood have not slowed Alessandra Bosco, the Army wife who garnered attention on the pages of Stars and Stripes awhile back for her pin-up style calendar marketed to deployed troops.
Her baby girl debuted a few months after her 2009 calendar, “Weapons of Mass Distraction,” hit the shelves in AAFES outlets.
“I have been asked about a 2010 and 2011 calendar by many supporters,” she said via email. “However, I wanted to take some time off from big projects to dedicate time to my daughter, Victoria.” said Alessandra.
Alessandra said she was back in front of the camera five months after delivery. Since then she has appeared in some Italian publications and was the April cover girl for an American men’s magazine.
In a 2008 interview with Stars and Stripes, Alessandra, then living in Germany, announced plans to donate some of proceeds of her 2009 calendar – $1 for each one sold – to the Fisher House at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.
“The calendar sold out quickly at stores downrange,” she said. “The online sales through my Web site were a big success as well.”
However, the donation to Fisher House was never given. Alessandra said administrative and schedule issues, including a PCS move and her daughter’s birth, intervened.
“The Fisher House was just an initial idea but nothing was ever final or firm,” she said. “The Fisher House is supported by many companies, people and organizations and after all I thought it was best to donate to those who were new in doing this and really needed help.”
She chose instead to donate to two smaller charities. Both are new and do not have Web sites yet, Alessandra said, adding that she is helping to create a site for one.
“I handled the donations directly with the founders simply because I know them,” she said. “I'm not looking for the spotlight on who I donated to."
Maybe not, but Alessandra has not been known to shun the spotlight. She hopes to create another calendar and has been seeking more military wives to join her on its pages, so far without much success, she said.
“Only very few applied but didn't show to be serious,” she said, adding that she is still looking for candidates in her current assignment.
She and her husband moved from Germany to Alessandra’s native Italy last year and are stationed at Vicenza.
Another of Alessandra’s new projects is related to her relationships with other military wives. She said she is working on a book titled, “The Jealousy Disease: A Real Insight on Military Communities.”
She said it is about “real problems … that people often do not want to talk about. My own personal experience through the years from being a military spouse and model at the same time.”
While living in Katterbach, Germany, the couple, in another Stripes story, reported harassment from military spouses and vandalism to their car.
They lived in a civilian neighborhood off post at the time. Despite the claims of Alessandra and her husband, the garrison commander at the time said it was never established that anyone connected with the U.S. military caused the damage.
Alessandra said some wives at Vicenza are excited and curious about her new projects. “But of course, others are still uptight about it,” she added.
Alessandra will likely raise eyebrows and blood pressure – for various reasons – wherever she goes. How much does the potential for controversy bother her?
“Not at all,” she said.
Click here to read "It's not easy being green," a 2008 Spouse Calls blog post about the debate over Alessandra's calendar.
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