Concerns Over Rights to Smoke in Military

[admin]

You would think that the guys that risk their lives and lose their lives fighting for our freedoms would have a chance to exercise some freedoms themselves ... but then again
http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/pipe-news/concerns-over-rights-to-smoke-in-military/

 

[python]

Sounds a little bit like Nazi Germany to me.

 

[smooth]

I was stationed at a small base on the Black Sea Turkey in 1962. For some reason, a huge load of leftover WWII rations were sent up to our cooks to prepare as our Easter meals. Don't remember the meals, but sure remember the strong cigarettes also enclosed in the ration boxes - we all got handfulls of Lucky Strike Greens! (Smokem if u gottum...)
How things change

 

[zanthal]

My Dad always told me you got a couple of cigarettes with every field meal when he was stationed in Germany during vietnam. He said the army must have made more lifetime smokers than anybody, because fellows who didn't smoke before, started out of sheer boredom.

 

[drsam]

During the American Revolution, George Washington sent a message to Congress which boiled down said "If you cannot send money, send tobacco!"

 

[baronsamedi]

I was in the Army in he early 90s and they were really pressing for smoking cessation back then. During daytime hours you rarely got the time to smoke anything other than a cigarette and if you weren't smoking on breaks you were accused of "standing around" and sent back to work. A lot of people bummed cigarettes just so they could have a break, so in spite of the Army's efforts, they were creating smokers. In the beginning we all smoked in doors buit in a couple of years, they really started enforcing the indoor bans everywhere except the barracks.

 

[bigvan]

I was in Navy boot camp (NTC San Diego) the spring of 88, and ours was one of the first classes where no smoking was allowed. At the time, the Navy had a goal of being "smoke free by 2000", meaning NONE of its sailors would smoke, even off duty.
Obviously, that never happened.

 

[mluyckx]

Wow..
Army in Belgium in late 80's. No problems smoking. If you were lucky you got a ration with a 12-pack in it. They started phasing out the cigarettes in the rations, so some of them still had it, some of them didn't. I'd say about half of the guys smoked.

 

[htmn246]

I started smoking in 1964 Navy bootcamp if you didn't smoke you got the crap jobs to do when the "smoking lamp" was lit

 

[atwageman]

I got an uncle who was a DI. If he caught anyone smoking during basic training he'd confiscate their cigs, make them go on a long hump (thats running to those who don't know) and would jog next them smoking the confiscated cigs.

 

[hnryclay]

I might be wrong, and I don't mean to post out of ignorance but I am pretty sure the military can order you not to get pregnant if you are a woman, to lose weight, and to answer to other physical attributes, including NO alcohol while on ship, then smoking would fall under the grounds of what they traditionally control.

 

[baronsamedi]

Our CO ordered No alcohol in the barracks so I found a place off post to stay and maintained a strictly GI room in the barracks for inspections. That was pretty common. You are supposed to obey any lawful order given to you by a superior so technically they could make you wear your underwear on your head if you piss off the wrong person. My senior drill in basic smoked constantly and could outrun every one of us. We, of course, were not allowed.

 

[smooth]

During my time in the Army, 1961 into 1964, a carton of cigarettes was $1.50, and Jim Beam half gallons were $2.50 at the post exchange. Show up at a German household with such things, and you were king of the hill. Tins of pipe tobacco from around the world were 95 cents.

 

[philip]

Time for a trip in the Wayback Machine.

 

[therealdone]

I'm at the Naval Academy right now and, as you can see from me being on here, they're not really stressing it too hard. Sure they have the anti-smoking campaigns but they had them back in high school and nearly every rec center in the country. A change of this magnitude isn't going to happen anytime soon, if at all.

 

[arinbjorn]

I was Army special ops airborne (PSYOP) from 06 to 09. Most of the time, we could smoke. Not inside though. 90% of the guys chewed, though.
As a Reserve soldier after an injury, the Commander had us outside picking up cig butts all the time. When they were paying people to take care of the outside appearance. Special ops training my hairy bum! Instead of worthwhile training, when we only had a few months between long deployments, we did that for hours. Idiot.
Good luck getting troops to put down tobacco in any case. They are under extreme stress, under horrendous deployment scheduels, and forced to be away from their families. Cut them some bloody slack. If you don't, they have no way to recover from endless fatigue - and people die that way.

 

[arinbjorn]

Oh, and it's true that you have zero basic human rights once you sign that enlistment contract. No freedom of speech whatsoever. So they NEED civilian folks to stand up for them! They aren't allowed to utter a word against a policy themselves.
They also have their body weight, etc controlled by the military. When, if ever, you get a chance to see your new born baby or hug your wife. And if you aren't a Christian, good luck with freedom of religion, even done privately and inconspicuously. It's a grim reality.

 

[maduroman]

this shit has been going on since the 70's.
little snot nosed LT tried to make the mess hall smoke free.... that is untill he ran head 1st into us NCO's. needless to say we could enjoy a smoke with our coffee while we plotted pain and suffering on the rank and file.

 

[bigvan]

It's true that "casual duty" like picking up cigarette butts can be maddening; I painted the same curbs yellow every day for a week. But that's the military.
I do take issue, though, with your "zero basic human rights" statement. That's a bit of a hyperbole, don't you think Arinbjorn? There is a sacrifice, to be sure, but that comes with service.

 

[arinbjorn]

From everything I experienced, I would maintain it is essentially zero basic human rights for the special ops troops - maybe not all troops. Even my militay ID stated that we are not bound to be treated correctly by the Geneva Convention rules, etc. But that was only my own perception. Things might be better in a non-special ops unit. Or a unit that never or rarely deployed overseas. I dunno. We were ran ragged and treated pretty horribly. A friend of mine who is still in service had five, one year long deployments between the birth of his daughter and his opportunity to meet his daughter from the Army. She of course didn't know who he was.
I spent a lot of time living in a barracks consisting of a WWII Bunker, which I initially thought was fantastic. Until it settled in that it had no heating at all in winter, and people kept getting hospitalized from trying to drink the water. There was some stuff on the news about it - down in Fort Bragg, NC.
I still made the sacrifice and was happy enough with my lot in life, and happy to help do my small part for the country. Had some of the BEST moments of my life doing it, too! There was just no way I could do it as a lifelong career. And it's likely that I was bound to follow more extreme orders than most folks because of the nature of the job I did for the military, which was really my own choice.
Should have gone Air Force! =)