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Jul 11, 2009

"Lucky Strike means fine tobacco" 

Or at least it used to. Nowadays it would mean "tobacco fines."
Pentagon health experts are pressing Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ban the use of tobacco by troops and ends its sale on military property, according to USA Today.
I enjoy the occasional cigar (on far fewer occasions now that there's a kid in the house), but I don't smoke cigarettes and I've never been a dipper... I can't even stand the smell of it. In fact, I find chewing to be a nasty, repugnant habit. However, there is no more sure fire way to ensure open revolt than to take away a fightin' man's tabaccy. Well maybe if you cut off his coffee...

The most laughable part of this whole thing however, is the reasoning behind it.
Tobacco use costs the Pentagon $846 million a year in medical care and lost productivity, according to the study, which was released last month and used older data. The Department of Veterans Affairs spends up to $6 billion in treatments for tobacco-related illnesses, the study found.
So, here we are in the middle of giving away TRILLIONS to looting free-loaders and the Pentagon is sweating $846 million!? You could find that in spare change recovered annually from between the couch cushions in the offices of the E-Ring. And besides, if we're all going to have government health care anyway, since when was money an object?

Look, we're the military. We follow lawful orders as passed down from our civilian leadership. And I suppose that if the civilians think that a smoke-free, all vegetarian, tofu snacking military is what they want protecting them, then that's what the US military will eventually become... for as long as it holds out before fainting while climbing a flight of stairs. But more typically what you get are type-A carnivores who have been known to have a bad habit or two. You start to take away their one outlet for relaxation (especially in a war zone, as booze has been taken off the menu) and you're going to run into issues.

And remember this: the military is often the testbed for concepts - be they good or bad - that are later dropped on the populace as a whole. Maybe people shouldn't smoke, but shouldn't that be up to them? You want me to mix the chocolate and peanut butter into a crazy taste explosion for you? Okay, try this on for size: EVERYONE will get government health care, right? WRONG for you smokers, who will be deemed a waste of cash and left to die. Or you'll simply be denied ANY treatment for ANY ailment, be it tobacco related or not, because you DARED break the first rule of Health Club: You do not puff about Health Club. And then the hard liquor goes, then the beer, and the caffeine too. And when the coffee is gone, that's when the feces has impacted the rotary impeller. Eventually we'll be subsisting on nutrient flavor cubes. And you can bet that they'll be introduced first in an MRE...


Yeah... those days are gone...
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 08:12
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