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Fraggin'

By Bill Shunas

When I undertook basic training, I figured that the easiest way to get through was to melt into the crowd. So, when the platoon would form up, I'd never get in the first rank or an end file where a DI would notice you. Likewise, I never got in the last rank. Them DIs thought they were slick. "About face!" Suddenly the last rank was in front, and those who had tried to hide in the back had a DI in their face and were soon on the ground doing pushups.

I didn't need any extra aggravation. There was already plenty of that there. Between sunup and sundown you didn't get much break time. So, when the commands of "Platoon, halt," "At ease," and "Light 'em if you have 'em" came, you could finally feel some relief. If you were lucky you had a DI for the day whose cigarette habit required a lot of breaks.

At these stops guys would get together, light cigarettes, take a deep drag and relax, sharing a moment with their buddies. Some would try to suck down two sticks, but most would take the one drag and let the square slowly burn. That's because the longer they burned, the longer you had break. Also, because if you finished your cigarette or didn't smoke you were likely to be subject to extra harassment while the others quietly kept smoking.

Back in those days I smoked cigars. I carried little ones for these short breaks during training. As it so happened, my platoon sergeant also liked cigars. When he called a halt and told us to light up, he'd come over to me, and I'd give him a cigar. He'd light up and go off to harass and/or bullshit with his favorite targets. Then one day he got his cigar from me and turned to go. He stopped dead in his tracks, turned around with a light-bulb-just-flashed look and said, "After five weeks in my platoon, I don't even know your name. What the hell's your name?" I thought to myself: mission accomplished. I'd achieved anonymity in basic training.

Occasionally I smoked cigarettes too. I remember when I first got to Vietnam I had shit-burning detail. When it was over, the four of us involved sat there sucking cigarettes, lighting them off each other's. We didn't talk, but we communicated as we stared into what the fire had left and smoked. I suppose we were contemplating the meaning of life. What does it mean to get out into the tropical sun, sweat pouring out of your half-naked body, pull about a dozen foul-smelling, sawed-in-half 65 gallon drums filled with shit of all sorts of colors and textures out from under the latrine, drag them off about twenty yards, pour gasoline over them, light it and sit back and let your senses go to work. What kind of person am I to be doing this? Have I reached the low point yet? We'd all light another one and shake our heads. Is there any up from here? The Army do have a way of humiliating you, don't it? And we thought pots and pans was bad.

Smoking has been an integral part of military life for longer than anyone can remember. When General Pershing was commander of US forces in Europe during World War I, he once was asked what supplies were needed for the war effort. His answer was, "Tobacco. Tobacco. Tobacco. Tobacco. Tobacco." Tobacco was part of relaxation and part of morale.

Then, around the time of the Gulf War, the Pentagon began to discourage smoking among the troops. The motive was financial. They figured that smoking-related illnesses were costing the military over $900 million yearly in lost work days. They figured that too much money in the military and VA hospital systems was going toward smoking-related disease. They finally figured it.

If the pusher wants to make your child a regular customer, he hangs out in or near the school, gives out free crack and talks about how cool it is. In the military we (mostly in our late teens) were given free cigarettes with our K-rats and C-rats and sometimes in wartime by the box, courtesy of the tobacco companies and the Pentagon. At the PX we could buy them cheaper than the big box of Tide. We watched World War II and Korean War movies where soldiers like Robert Mitchum, William Holden and Robert Ryan sat in trenches with dirty faces and cigarettes dangling from their lips, relaxing while they waited for the fighting to resume. From the first day of basic training we learned to use cigarettes to take a break. We learned to use cigarettes to relax with each other and communicate with one another.

It doesn't seem like it's on the same level as Agent Orange, radiation exposure or Gulf War Syndrome. Those were things that came from war either hot or cold. We were pissed and appalled because they resulted from weapons used in those wars. Our leaders callously went ahead using them when they damn well knew (or should have known) the harm they'd cause their own troops.

Cigarettes don't seem to be in that category. Yet - lung cancer. Heart disease. Vascular disease. Emphysema. The list has about twenty of these terms. It means earlier-than-normal death. It means vets coughing and wasting away in VA hospitals. Maybe the suffering doesn't start as soon after as with Gulf War Syndrome, or maybe death doesn't come as soon as from Agent Orange. But it's there, and it comes.

In the recent tobacco cases, R.J. Reynolds acknowledged that Joe Camel was conceived in 1984 when they made a "long-termed commitment to younger adult smoker programs." Most smokers who are unable to kick the habit, and therefore provide the profit margin, are those who started during their teenage years. There are many, many teenagers in the military. Always have been. That's why cigarettes were so easily available and alluring. Starter samples.

There were only 2.8 million of us in Vietnam, and not all were affected by Agent Orange. There were only a couple of hundred thousand in the Gulf and not all were exposed to depleted uranium, oil fires or chemical dumps. There were a couple thousand atomic vets. The number of servicemen and women targeted by the tobacco industry with the complicity of the Pentagon and its forerunner dates back to at least World War I. Tens of millions of targets. Makes you appalled and pissed. I wonder if my fellow shit burners still light up.

Bill Shunas is a Vietnam Veteran, author & editor of the newspaper for the American Postal Workers Union at AMC-O'Hare.