Jump to full article: Killeen (TX) Daily Herald, 2008-11-18
Author: Iuliana Petre
Intro: Smoking and I never became an item.
And then I joined the Army.
Smoking — tobacco use in general, actually — is prevalent in the military. At times it seemed that there were more smokers, or tobacco users, than non-smokers.
In formations sometimes, smokers were offered privileges the rest of us did not get.
. . .
As a company commander, I remember getting only one flier from the medical facility encouraging soldiers to sign up for a smoking cessation class that was offered. It was the military’s one attempt to offer a program to help smokers to quit. It was voluntary, of course, and soldiers were offered group counseling sessions to talk about the dangers of smoking, nicotine gum or patches and all of it was free of charge.
No one in my unit jumped on the bandwagon.
In Iraq, smoking and tobacco products were so popular that those were the first things to fly off the shelf at the AAFES stores. . . .
And with all of the smoking and tobacco cessation efforts across the nation — anti-smoking commercials on television, high-priced tobacco products — it seems as if the military is “out of step” and barely making the same effort to save its soldiers.
After all, what happens when a soldier who’s been smoking or using tobacco products for 20 years comes down with a smoking-related condition such as cancer, cardiovascular disease or noncancerous respiratory disease?
That soldier will seek medical assistance from his or her local VA . . .
I’m sure there are a lot of people out there, just like me, who may perceive smoking to be cool. But, besides the harmful effects on a person, the effect on taxpayers’ wallets negates any coolness.
So, in honor of the annual Great American Smokeout, slated for Nov. 20, I urge all soldiers, non-soldiers and former soldiers, to put out that cigarette for the last time.
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