I want to serve my country. I want to help make the world free for democracy, and maybe suck a few pounds off of my butt and a little tuck around the belly area.

"Anyone wearing a uniform is eligible," Dr. Bob Lyons, the chief of plastic surgery at Brooke Army Medical Center, said recently, in his office in San Antonio. It is true: personnel in all four branches of the military and members of their immediate families can get face-lifts, nose jobs, breast enlargements, liposuction, or any other kind of elective cosmetic alteration, at taxpayer expense. (For breast enlargements, patients must supply their own implants.)

- All That You Can Be - The New Yoker

I can just here the war cry: "I want to be an airborn ranger, I want to have a breast augmentation."