"Why do you ask?"
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 ...
I asked my dad. (just turned 91) He said they called them that and a “Good Humor Man Suit”
USN 1946-48 USS Howard W. Gilmore AS-16
If you ‘suspected’ Mrs Mcgilicuddy was listening in, just say something ‘dramatic’ about her and wait for the gasp from HER and all the others..then the ‘click’...
Without thinking I will STILL say ice box and am a tad older than 30....
Of course, all us USN types (well military) can have a conversation using the ‘old’ words and it is sort of cryptic... (Don’t pull a Clark Gable saying I had a ‘gay old time’ last night in the 1930s reruns)
no kneepads, no helmets, no airbags, no seat-belts or when they were there, no one paid the slightest attention to them ... it’s a wonder anyone survived ...
Thanks for your thought.
He commanded a Stewart light tank and was in the Battle of the Bulge. After that was among the first forces into Germany proper. The stuff that man must have seen. Concentration camps, fighting old men and young boys at times. House to house fighting. A boy of 13 shot his commanding officer.
He never really talked about it much but sometimes it flowed out of him.
He smoked from the age of 11 and died of lung cancer at the age of 86. He had been diagnosed the year before. No emphysema or anything really.
Tobacco was a major cash crop of the near South. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Carolinas were all big tobacco producing states and key states in the ruling Democrat coalition during the two world wars. Wilson and Roosevelt were dependent upon the support of the “solid south”, this was why tobacco was so important.
[[[no kneepads, no helmets, no airbags, no seat-belts or when they were there, no one paid the slightest attention to them ... it’s a wonder anyone survived ...]]]
I vacuumed the toilet out twice when I was a kid. LOL
Slinky in the electrical outlet (fireworks) and pouring water in a Touché light. (bang)
After an attack one of the first things requested were
ammunition and tobacco. The tobacco was to cover the
smell of the dead.
Also allayed the pangs of hunger.
Yes, I remember the C-ration packs of 4.
MOstly Luckies and Pall Malls.
Also to a lesser extent, Connecticut.
I remember this radio jingle back in the early 50s. “Pepsi cola hits the spot,12 full ounces that’s a lot, twice as much for a Nickle too, PEPSI COLA is the drink for you”.
That’s when coke was in the 6 oz bottles.
Yes he deserves respect for his service. I can’t comprehend the experience and memories he carried.
We need more men like him.
wait for the gasp from HER and all the others..then the ‘click’...
The pay phone in the back was for calling out, but someone figured out that dial phones transmitted a number of clicks based on the number you dialed. A seven, for example, had seven clicks which set a stepper relay at the phone company to that number.
So we would tap the receiver cradle on the dial-less phone to generate the numbers we wanted, and called out for free.
I don’t think we ever got caught.
What a piece, written from the ignorance of an overactive imagination. It’s not “smoking culture.” It’s the lack of sleep!
Ah, yes, Pall Malls.
“Pall Mall ‘travels’ the smoke,
filters it, and makes it mild.’
... just like every other cigarette. LOL
Hmm...remember being told that if ‘your’ mind was used for good instead of evil how much better off you would be.
Of course, it wasn’t as much fun.
Even before cell phones, if the barkeep wasn’t ‘paying attention’ I would call from the pay phone by the bar (great idea ONLY if you don’t mind people think you are ‘wasting’ your time at a bar) and order a drink...
Everyone likes a ‘little arse’ no one likes a ‘smart arse’.
I got to be pretty decent at shuffleboard back then.
Sad you don’t see them much anymore. I hate pool.
wow!
and i thought i was a bad kid ...
Good observation and memory. It’s happened throughout modern history.
"Why do you ask?"
I had a fascination with mechanical things at an early age. LOL
After that I moved into my all things involving fire stage for a few years.
I was destined to be a plumber and electrician.
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