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{{trope}}
A '''Camp Follower''' is a civilian that follows a military force. Often the term refers to prostitutes, but people with other non combat jobs, such as merchants or cooks can count too.
Not to be confused with a follower who is [[Camp Gay|camp]].
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In the second season of ''[[Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?]]'', an army attacks and is defeated by the local's adventurers. After the attack, the locals come out of the city and do business with the soldiers. Yes, including women from the temple of Ishtar, that practices sacred prostitution.
==
* Not quite the same thing, but some ''[[Playboy]]''
** Gets a bit closer to the trope in the Redux version; the playmates' transport breaks down and the characters in the main party offer to fix it... in exchange for some private time with the playmates.
** ''Charlie didn't get much USO. He was dug in too deep or moving too fast. His idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat.''
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* ''[[American Gangster]]''.
* ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]''. She [[Me Love You Long Time|love you long time]].
* Cheryl Ladd's character (Deborah Solomon) in ''[[Purple Hearts]]'' wasn't a prostitute, but a Navy nurse. She provided the romantic interest and motivation to Ken Wahl's character Don Jardian, which led him to volunteering for some dangerous missions just so he could see her.
* In ''[[Mediterraneo]]'', a troop of Italian soldiers is sent in a Greek island during [[World War II]]. While most of the locals are
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* At the beginning of ''[[Sharpe]]'s Rifles'', a bunch of drunken redcoats are seen sleeping with some local women who have turned to prostitution. Later in the book, Sharpe has an argument with the Spanish officer he's teamed up with while fondling a prostitute. He doesn't sleep with her.
* In ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', Tyrion Lannister enlists the services of a prostitute camp follower, and later smuggles her into the city to be his concubine.
* In Terry Pratchett's ''[[
** They also get advised that {{spoiler|if they ''don't'' visit the "Solid Doves", people might get suspicious. Sgt Jackrum always brought a book to read}}.
* Nately has a favorite hooker in ''[[Catch-22]]'' with whom he has fallen in love. She is referred to as "Nately's Whore" throughout.
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* ''[[Gone with the Wind]]'' includes a description of the prostitutes that have come pouring into Atlanta with the army, including a wry observation by the town's #1 Bad Woman that she was turned away from volunteering at the hospital because they "didn't want [her] kind of nursing".
* Mollie Bean in ''[[The Guns of the South]]'' combines this with [[Sweet Polly Oliver]]. Note she's based on a real person.
* Gretchen Richter, one of the major characters in the ''[[1632]]'' series is a former camp follower who was rescued and promptly married by one of the time-displaced Americans. Also she's [[Badass]].
* A brothel owned by one of these shows up in the third ''[[Codex Alera]]'' book, ''Captain's Fury.'' Tavi tends to use it just for the bath. {{spoiler|After most of the command structure of his Legion's blown up by Canim sorcery, he hires the madam, who's shown to be a keen businesswoman and good with people, as his Tribune Logistica - basically, supply officer.}}
** Because of how ''crafting'' works, the prostitutes themselves are relatively strong ''earthrafters'' (because you can inspire lust with ''earthcraft'' ... we don't know either but that's how it works). When Tavi needs to build large defensive emplacements, he drafts the prostitutes.
* In the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'', camp followers of all kinds are portrayed as very bad people. The D'Harans target the Imperial Order camp whenever they can, not having any qualms about having denying the Imperial Order any service they can, whether it's [[Freud Was Right|''that'']] kind of service, or blacksmithing or cleaning or anything else that could give the Imperial Order any advantage.
* The ''[[Aubrey-Maturin]]'' series is rife with whores. Stephen blames this on the land rather than the sailors.
* In ''[[Belisarius Series]]'', after Belisarius recaptures a Persian city his army is crowded with Persian civilians clinging to the Romans for protection. This is [[Truth in Television]]; many camp followers in history were simply seeking protection from the other army or from the opportunistic banditry that always comes when war breaks down law and order.
* Nicholette in ''[[Seven Men of Gascony]]''. In some ways she is a subversion as she is not only a wine seller rather then a prostitute but she is almost prudish for the circumstances
▲== Live Action TV ==
* Marg Helgenberger's character on ''[[China Beach]]''.
* A scene in ''[[Band of Brothers]]'' has one of the soldiers engaging in sex with a French prostitute.
** Similar to the French in the [[Real Life]] section, one episode shows the men liberating a Dutch city - where the people are taking the opportunity to shave and humiliate the women who slept with Germans.
* On ''[[Generation Kill]]'', the Marines are approached by two Iraqi gay male prostitutes.
* ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'': During the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, Bajoran women were taken to be used as comfort women for Cardassian soldiers.
* What with [[
== [[Music]] ==▼
▲== Music ==
* The song "1917" by David Onley describes a French [[Hooker with a Heart of Gold]] consoling shell-shocked young soldiers:
{{quote|''He speaks to me in schoolboy French▼
''Of a soldiers life inside a trench▼
''Of the look of death and the ghastly stench▼
''I do my best to please him }}▼
== [[Theatre]] ==
▲{{quote|He speaks to me in schoolboy French
▲Of a soldiers life inside a trench
▲Of the look of death and the ghastly stench
▲I do my best to please him }}
* ''[[Miss Saigon]]''
* There's one of these in ''Mother Courage and her Children''.
* Invoked in one of General Washington's dispatches in ''[[1776 (musical)|1776]]'', when he complained that "every able-bodied whore in colonies" had converged on New Brunswick, NJ to take advantage of the encampment of the Continental Army there.
== [[Real Life]] ==
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* To prevent this trope, when Clara Barton formed the Red Cross during the [[American Civil War]], she specified that all the women who applied as nurses be "[[Christmas Cake|at least 30]] and [[Hollywood Homely|plain-looking]]."
* In a subversion, most of the shipboard stowaway women in the [[Royal Navy]] seem to have been legitimate wives. Love might make a woman endure the life but prostitution did not pay well enough to go to sea just to find jobs, and most prostitutes waited at shore near naval bases.
**Similarly, in the British Army, a large number of the camp followers were either common-laws or legal wives rather than prostitutes per se and were regarded as in a sense [[One of Us|part of]] [[Band of Brothers|the regiment.]]
* Although these women provided sex and then resulting STD's could decimate an army, many commanders tolerated them since the men needed companionship and more importantly many of the prostitutes would assist in providing medical care to the wounded. Yes medical care. Stop sniggering. Really.
* In eighteenth century armies women would often go foraging, and some commented on how they could be as [[More Deadly Than the Male|ruthless as men]] about such things
* John Bierman in ''War Without Hate'' (a history of the North African campaign), implies that one of the reasons that the song ''Lili Marlene'' was popular was the ambiguous status of the woman left such things to the imagination. She could on the one hand be the innocent [[My Girl Back Home| girl back home]] they liked to think they were fighting for. On the other hand, what the heck was she doing hanging around ''the barracks gate'' as the song's words have it?
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:The Oldest Profession]]
▲[[Category:Camp Follower]]
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