Posted on 08/11/2019 10:53:24 AM PDT by re_tail20
Mention of the American military-industrial complex conjures up images of massive weapons procurement programs and advanced technologies: supersonic bombers, strategic missiles, armor-plated tanks, nuclear submarines, and complex space systems. However, a key element of the military lifestyle for many years was not a weapon or even a machine, but one of the world’s most highly engineered consumer products: the manufactured cigarette.
U.S. soldiers used to smoke often in historical footage, so why don’t they anymore? Why are U.S. military officers now banned from smoking in uniform on some installations? Looking back at military smoking culture, stark distinctions separate the past and the present: Hardly anyone smokes in public on bases today. There are no cigarette billboards, no smoke breaks on the rifle range, no ash trays in the squadron bar, and no smoke-filled post-mission briefing rooms.
The demise of soldierly smoking during the 20th century is a story of power, politics, culture, and money. The nearly 90-year-long relationship reveals how difficult it can be to extricate the government from corporate collaboration once companies get entrenched in partnerships. And, of course, when an intensely passionate affair turns sour, the fists—and the lobbyists—come out.
But the love between the Army and the cigarette all started rather innocently on the World War I battlefield. After a year of war, the Army decided to give out cigarettes to enlisted men because they wanted to keep them calm during battle and free of boredom. The Army was aided, ironically, by the Y, which also handed out billions more manufactured cigarettes to soldiers. For its part, the Y wanted to keep men from liquor and sex workers. The vice of manufactured cigarette smoking was the happy compromise from which everyone got something.
Soon Y volunteers could be found in every corner of the frontlines providing “loosies”...
(Excerpt) Read more at zocalopublicsquare.org ...
Both sides might see or smell cig smoke.
Night time smoking could be dangerous because of the “cherry” at the end of a cig was very visible and could be a pretty good target.
Thank you Uncle Frank for your service. If I smoked I would smoke one for you.
At least Len is still with us, I would assume he probably quit.
Smoking go way back before we were even a country and the US Military is not the nexus of it...
Silliness
*************
Exactly.
Making up crap and talking out the side of their necks. The military provided tobacco (not just cigarettes but chewing tobacco too) *because* men smoked already and it was not possible to just pop off to the corner store to pick up a pack when on the battlefield. And when dealing with all the other stressors, why make them have to deal with nic fits too?
Never had them after BCT, AIT, OCS etc. We had indig. rations. Shrimp and rice was great with the yards cutting fresh bamboo
shoots. We used lots of hot sauce.
not during daylight.
Fitness? I have never seen such fat leaders.
Fitness? I have never seen such fat leaders.
“He might have done this out of patriotism but the end result was that the USA became a nation of Coke drinkers. Because he got them habituated to using his product.”
Before 1955, Coke was sold in 6.5 oz bottles. A 12 oz bottle was introduced in 1955, and the 12 oz cans in 1960. No one was addicted to Coke. The “Big Gulp” was introduced by 7/11 in 1976.
My dad told me he smoked Luckies until he was standing at the bow of his minesweeper and they just tasted flat. He switched to Camels.
As I recall, Remarque wrote in All Quiet on the Western Front about how they could pick off doughboys who were smoking cigarettes at night.
the USA became a nation of Coke drinkers
Mad Men captured the sixties, with everyone puffing like crazy. Mom, smoking away, even let the toddlers play in those thin dry-cleaning bags without a thought of suffocation.
Yep, also ice box, wire tap (we & PDJT), spy NOT electronic surveillance), correct, some things just ingrained and hard to shake because of familiarity...Still will say coke and immediately change to pepsi or such (Only Ice Tea - unsweetened.... and get below Mason Dixon line Black Coffee and Ice Tea are rendered useless by TOO generous portions of sugar...You said Black, you didn’t say no sugar ...<: <:)
“Mom, smoking away, even let the toddlers play in those thin dry-cleaning bags without a thought of suffocation.”
I laughed so hard when Betty on that show told her bored kid to go play with the dry cleaning bag. We didn’t see the series when it came out, but binge watched earlier this year. Interesting. I still have sewing patterns for some of the clothes they wore in the show The smoking, though ...!
Hilarious. I remember him doing the news when I was a kid.
Mad Men was a hoot at times.
Early on, the main female was in the Doctor’s exam room. She was pregnant. Her young daughter was with her. Mom lit up. A few moments later, the Doc came in, and he lit up.
I was LOL. That was the way it used to be.
I used ‘ice box’ well into my thirties. And we didn’t need wiretaps on our party lines; everyone just eavesdropped on everyone else. LOL
“As recently as the 80’s NFL players would smoke in locker rooms at halftime. “
heck, John Elway smoked during the years he won superbowls ...
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