As an Airborne Dedicated Individual Combat Killer (ADICK), these are ambrosia and nectar, handed down by the Airborne Gods themselves.
Before I joined the Army in 2012, I smoked regularly. My total consumption was around a pack a day, and I usually smoked Camel Lights (I would have kept on smoking Lucky Strike filtered cigarettes, but they discontinued them around 2007). When I signed my life over to good ol' Uncle Sam and arrived at MEPS to get on a bus, I had just run out. I remember bouncing my legs the entire bus ride out to Fort Benning, desperately wanting a smoke. The constant thought in my head was "how the fuck am I going to survive without cigarettes for 5 months." I was pretty sure I was going to die.
So it came as a surprise to me that, after the initial 24 hours of wanting to claw my eyes out and bash my skull into a wall, I was okay. Basic Training has a way of making you forget that you have desires and needs by beating you over the skull with corrective training and blocks of instruction. I didn't want a cigarette the whole time I was there. Even when we had Family Day after finishing Basic and I was free to go and buy a pack of smokes, I was okay. The urge had left me entirely, and I felt damn good.
Same went for Airborne School, but I think it was more a carry over from finishing Basic and Advanced Training (which was called OSUT in the cavalry and infantry worlds). I could have swung by the PX right across the street after training was finished every day and bought a pack of cigarettes, but I didn't. I tried a cigarette and about puked because of how utterly awful it was. I managed to make it through OSUT and Airborne School without smoking a single cigarette.
I also didn't pick up a soda for almost the entire time, either. We weren't allowed to drink soda in OSUT, because privates deserve to suffer, and in Airborne School I had become so accustomed to blue Powerade that I sort of just went through the motions without realizing it. Even when I would grab dinner from Subway, I opted for Powerade instead of a Diet Coke, which was and still is my drink of choice. I didn't need caffeine, and I didn't need nicotine, coming out of the training pipeline. I was clean and sober for the first time since I was 16.
Fast forward to my third week at Fort Bragg, stationed at the 82nd by-God Airborne Division. Back to smoking a pack a day, and I had upgraded to Monsters instead of Diet Cokes. How could this have happened? Why would I voluntarily return to ingesting crap that would go on to make me feel ten years older than I actually was? Well, a couple of reasons. Stress was the big one, and the other was because everyone else was and the desire to conform is a real bitch.
The stress part pretty much goes without saying. Every day was a 10-12 hour day, starting from when I woke up at 0510 to get ready and get dressed and ending at...well, whenever the troop commander said so. We gave up pretending to figure out when close of business was going to be since it was never the fucking same and we never got off early. Best to just accept your fate, lay down, and take the Big Green Weenie. Aside from the days being long (with some of them being 24 hours straight), we were constantly doing things. Between layouts, jumps, prep for field exercises, loading up for JRTC, and everything else, we were constantly moving and doing something, and being at that operational tempo every day wears on you. Coupled with the fact I was the new dick in the platoon and had no friends to speak of, I had to do something.
Which brings me to my next point: the pressure to conform. In OSUT it's not so bad because everyone in the platoon is the new dick. You're all equally worthless, and you're all sucking through the slog the same way. There are no individual punishments (except if you do something really separation-worthy), so it is extremely easy to form bonds between the people you go through it with. This is the opposite of arriving at your unit as a fresh private. Once you hit the regular Army, you get to go through the whole worthless phase all over again, but this time you're on your own. Sure, you might have an E-4 that tries to get you up to speed, but your unit expects you to be a box of smashed asshole and they treat you accordingly until you manage to distinguish yourself.
So what did I do to deal with stress and fitting in? I started smoking again, and I started pounding Monsters like they were bottles of water. When I did my first rotation through JRTC as a brand new private in my unit, I stocked up on cartons and I pitched in to buy pallets of Rip-Its (which I am convinced are made with meth; drink two of those back to back and you'll hear the blood coursing through your veins). Not only did it earn me brownie points which I leveraged for a better reputation in the platoon, but I fit in with all the other smokers. They remembered my face, my name tape, and they associated me with the group. When I got back from JRTC, I was one of the guys. Sure, the job was still stressful as hell, but at least I didn't have to deal with all that social anxiety.
So you know what I did? Kept smoking a pack and a half a day and drinking a ton of energy drinks. Hooah. Stay Army Strong.
Andrei Chira is a vaper, voluntaryist, and all-around cool dude. Formerly a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, he now spends his time between working at VapEscape in Montgomery County, Alabama, contributing to Seeds of Liberty on Facebook and Steemit, and expanding his understanding of...well, everything, with an eye on obtaining a law degree in the future.
Good story! It's nice to read a little about life sometimes!
Thanks! That's what this whole series is about: life through the eyes of a guy that used to jump out of planes for a living lol
While the life of a postgraduate student is nowhere near as stressful as Army Airborne, the marching orders are the same: nicotine and caffeine. Though usually it takes the form of endless pots of coffee and clove cigarettes. Ugh.
Also, Lucky Strikes? Jesus Christ man, at least you were smoking filters. No wonder you vape now!
Loved me some Lucky Strikes. They were $1.50 more than every other cigarette, and $.50 more than American Spirits where I bought them, and I forked it over anyway.
Coincidentally, there were a couple of weeks where I was trying to make a vape flavor that was similar to how Lucky Strikes cigarettes smelled. I was unsuccessful.
That's a cool picture of you in uniform.
Thank you! It's about the best picture I have of me in uniform; that is, one where I'm not fresh out of Basic and don't look like a turd. lol
You sir ar a complete bad@$$! Namaste~!
Well I dunno about all that, but I like to think I did stuff that 80-90% of the population will probably never get a chance to do. I'd say more stupid crazy than badass, if there's a functional difference :D
I quit smoking and never went back to it. Drove me crazy that non-smokers never got breaks and smokers took one every hour. In a lot of ways the military encourages smoking, caffeine and beer.
My God does it ever. If you didn't smoke, drink, or ingest copious amounts of legal stimulants before, you're definitely going to once you're in.
Well I indulged in two out of three. We had these sea sickness pills that were given out like candy. There was a blue pill and a pink pill. Guys quickly figured out that the blue pill was the sea sickness medication and the pink one was to counteract the drowsiness of that pill. You know where that went. BTW, when I first joined you could buy cartons of cigarettes outside of US territorial waters for $2.00 a carton.