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I'll have to say that the general drift of this thread is anything but hysterical as far as I'm concerned. I'm no big anti-smoking crusader by a long shot - my libertarian tendencies would never permit it. But that said, there is uncontrovertable proof that smoking kills thousands and thousands of people every year due to heart disease, lung cancer and emphysema. Let's not bullzhit ourselves (love that more gentile way of spelling it!)

Just in case you think I don't know what I'm talking about, I used to smoke myself and loved it but was forced to give it up by my former husband.

To illustrate my point, my fabulous son-in-law infantry SSG deployed to the sandbox in January. He has always been extremely close to his paternal grandmother, whom he feared he would never see again because she was in very poor health. Fortunately he did get to see her in July when he was home on leave, which is a good thing, because she died two weeks ago - of emphysema. She had smoked all her life. The night she died, another grandson who was caring for her served her a hot toddy, gave her her last cigarette of the day, then tucked her in. She died in her sleep later that night.

She was in her early '70s, and the quality of her life for the last several years was awful - she was in ever increasing pain and couldn't breathe well enough to enjoy her life. She actually wanted to die long before she did.

Now my infantry squad leader son-in-law is grieving the earlier-than-necessary death of his grandmother while he conducts mission after mission with no more than three hours sleep at a time and tries like hell to keep his squad and himself alive. God knows he doesn't need the distraction.

Ironically, both he and my daughter smoke, though both would like to quit. My daughter has smoked for more than ten years, started when she was 16 and today is the first to admit that it was a dumb-ass thing to do. But teenagers often don't have the life experience to anticipate the consequences down the road - hence the danger of romanticizing smoking like is being done here. Before we try to convince anyone that smoking is harmless, let's think about what it might do to those who love us if we are wrong.

Just my opinion, of course. YMMV. (Your mileage may vary.)

Polygirl

I understand where you are coming from - but I think you are missing the point. No one here is saying smoking is good for you.............

The way I see this issue is that the newspapers that printed this picture basically told the PC nanny crowd to stick a sock in it. They can't see the soul of this young man because the only thing they see is the cigarette and that is an affront to their delicate sensibilities.

To them he is not a young warrior fighting to protect their right to whine about his picture - they only see an evil smoker.

Every time I see that picture, I don't see a smoker - the cigarette means nothing to me - what I see is a young man who volunteered to risk his life for me and mine. And I salute him.