Calendar Featuring Half Naked Dutch Marines Earns 100,000 Euros in Sales

The birth anniversary calendar of the Dutch Marine Corps featuring several of its male members posing half naked has raised more than €100,000 in sales which was donated to charity on Friday.

Corps commander Brigadier General Jan Hut made no secret of his pride. “As far as we are concerned, this is a wonderful result. It started with a twitter message and eventually grew into 2 editions of a very popular calendar.”

He continued to say, “humor is an important part of our work for us. Because it is precisely in the difficult circumstances in which we sometimes find ourselves that it is humor that puts everything into perspective,” a press release from the Netherlands MoD announced.

Checks totaling €10,000 were handed over to representatives of several charities including the PTSD Foundation, Help Them Come Home, Bartimeus, Mytylschool Rotterdam, Sophia Children's Hospital, Help Dog Foundation, Mariniersziekenboeg Foundation, Old Marines Togetherness Dinner Foundation and Rico's Cambodia Foundation. In addition, 3 charities in Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten will soon receive a check each.

Press release link: https://www.defensie.nl/actueel/nieuws/2021/06/25/halfnaakte-mariniers-zamelen-ruim-100.000-euro-in-met-eigen-kalender

More than 14,000 copies of the calendar have been sold. It is the 2nd and for now the last time that the Marines have taken off (part of) their clothes, the release said implying that there will no more editions of the popular calendar. Last year's 1st edition sold more than 5,000 copies. The pages of the current edition will simply turn over the next few years, as it is a birthday calendar, the release said.

Photo-shoot for the 2021 calendar was launched in November 2020. The calendar costs € 20.50 (including shipping costs) and was offered for sale on www.marinierskalender.nl which currently posts a sold out message.