By Col. Tobias McGleaner, Ret.

[NOTE:Colonel Tobias McGleaner is a retired officer in all four branches of the United States military service. Among the elite units in which he has both served and led are the Army Special Forces Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Recon, and various unnamable Black Ops organizations. The Colonel is the red-blooded, three-fisted embodiment of everything True and American. Below, he pays tribute to a fallen comrade and Red-White-and-Blue brother, filmmaker Andy Sidaris.]

Forgive an old soldier his tears. But when I learned of the death of my friend, the great filmmaker Andy Sidaris, on March 7, 2007, the breasts of the world looked a little less buoyant, the butts somehow not as round, and the pussy just wasn't as juicy.

I'm not speaking metaphorically. The news came in the morning edition of Stars and Stripes that I was reading in a Saigon cathouse. Peeling the three naked concubines off my body, I knew I had to get my ass back to the States and bag me a bazooka-breasted American girl in honor of our fallen hero.

After satisfying my personal memorial for Sidaris, I paid my respects to Arlene, the Lady Sidaris, his beautiful wife. How the sight of her luminous beauty stirred my duffle bag of memories.

It was in the so-called Summer of Love that I first met Andy Sidaris. I was engaged in an anti-terrorist unit of Special Forces in Mexico City, where he had directed the Summer Olympics. He was fondling the Emmy Award he won for that work.

"Let's find you a softer target," I suggested. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I was already familiar with Sidaris's work for ABC's Wild World of Sports and his "honey shot" close-ups of cheerleaders and stadium sexpots during sporting events. But a man of his huge talent (and I know, I saw it in action) needed to express himself on a larger canvas.

He found the perfect medium on the big screen, his palette the breast Playboy magazine had to offer: voluptuousness made flesh in the persons of Julie Strain (Picture: ), Dona Speir (Picture: ), Hope Marie Carlton (Picture: ), Cynthia Brimhall (Picture: ), Roberta Vasquez (Picture: ), Julie K. Smith (Picture: ), Shae Marks (Picture: ), and Wendy Hamilton (Picture: ), among many sexy others.

The boob tube provided a bridge from the first half of his career to those masturbation pieces, though The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries hardly could hold the full breadth of his creativity. It's like loading a howitzer with .22-caliber ammunition. Sidaris needed the big guns that only his actresses and the best surgeons of Beverly Hills could provide.

Sidaris, like another great American, Mr. Skin, was a native Chicagoan, but he called Beverly Hills home. By the mid-'80s he began the dynasty of delicious decadence that became his trademark with Malibu Express (1985). The plot came right out of my own experiences as soldier of fortune, though I never worked for anyone as curvaceously carnal as Sybil Danning (Picture: ).

Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987) concerned itself with drug traffickers. I was intimate with that, having spent much of that decade in the jungles of South America burning cocaine fields. After a day breaking the back of the drug cartel I sought some much-needed R&R with the local senoritas, who were happy to dine on my overstuffed burrito until I blew hot salsa all over their smiling faces.

If three makes a trend, then with Picasso Trigger (1988) Sidaris was officially on a roll. Sidaris shared my contempt for modern art and named the super-villain of this action-spy flick after that Cubist kook. Pablo never painted anything as stimulating as even the discarded frames on Sidaris's cutting-room floor.

One of my favorite Sidaris steamers is Savage Beach (1989), with the arousing addition of Teri Weigel (Picture: ) and Lisa London (Picture: ). These top-heavy hitters would have been welcome in my platoon when we stormed the bloody beach at Normandy back in WWII. In fact if we had Sidaris's movies like Guns (1990) packed in our K-Rations, we'd have defeated Jerry even sooner. Just one look at Devin DeVasquez (Picture: ) and Donna Spangler (Picture: ) would have reminded us what we were fighting for.

It may be presumptuous of me, but I like to think Do or Die (1991) was inspired by the tattoo of the same name that wraps around the hard bicep of my right arm. It's a philosophy that informs every aspect of my life. I was on set as advisor and spent a lot of private time teaching Pandora Peaks, Ava Cadell (Picture: ), and Carolyn Liu (Picture: ) the right way to hold a weapon, using my love gun as a prop. It nearly rubbed me raw, but it was worth it to get that authenticity onscreen that Sidaris demanded.

Becky Mullen (Picture: ) and Mika Quintard joined the crew for Hard Hunted (1992). It was one of Sidaris's most inspired scripts, creating the agents of L.E.T.H.A.L., an anti-terrorist organization that worked under the cover of KSXY, a radio station with bikini-clad deejays. It was another tip of the hat to yours truly, having shared my covert missions to the Middle East with Sidaris, though I've never worn a pair of Speedos. To do so would cause passers-by a coronary. I've more meat in my trunks than the killing floor of a slaughterhouse.

Stolen hot rocks support the story in Fit to Kill (1993), another apt title for a Sidaris pants-boiler, which introduced busty blonde Sandra Wild to the stable of foxy ladies.

Day of the Warrior (1996) was Sidaris's penultimate softcore thriller. Always on the lookout for new blood to rush to his erection, he cast Tammy Parks, who proves that more is more. She was so big it made me bigger. Thankfully Tammy is a patriotic soul and rallied round my flag with her mouth.

For Sidaris's swansong he returned both to one of his earliest triumphs and mine. Return to Savage Beach (1998) tells the tale of terrorists after a hidden WWII treasure. The new tails exposed include Playboy Playmate Carrie Westcott (Picture: ). I helped with the script, based on my own experiences pillaging priceless artwork from the Germans. Hey, they stole it first!

Life was a beach for Sidaris. He worked hard. He played hard. He made all those lucky enough to see his movies hard. But he was no pornographer or, God forbid, European producer of erotica. No. Sidaris was an American, born and bred, and a family man. Lady Arlene Sidaris and Andy's son from a previous marriage, worked on most of his productions. I was at the christening of little Christian Drew Sidaris, who grew up to helm some of his father's films. It is with this younger Sidaris that the vision of his father will live on.

We have lost an icon, but there is no reason to mourn. Sidaris has left behind a lustful legacy and lives on in the reels of revealing celluloid he made throughout his career. As I declared in Andy's honor before I passed out dead drunk outside her memorial service, "I've come not to praise Sidaris, nor to bury him, but to come!" And I did.


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