After all that frumphing around with overgeneralized numerology to pad the answer out to column length, one thing is noticeably lacking.
The original question.
The original question was not how many WWII vets might have died from cancer, which is the number that Cecil gave. The original question was how many additional vets might have died from cancer because they were induced to smoke. Totally different question, and one not ever mentioned by word or implication anywhere in the column.
(I’m going to get responses that the exact wording of the question was simply how many vets died. But that’s not what the total context of the question implied.)
Obviously, a huge number of men of that era would have died from smoking related cancer even if the war had never occurred. That number is mildly interesting, but no more so than the number of men who later died in auto accidents. The government didn’t hand out cars to the soldiers, it handed out cigarettes and encouraged their use. It’s those people who might never have smoked and then died whose number is the crucial one.
Wish that Cecil had pulled out his ouija board and divined an answer to that.
The question is indeed not answered. It also seems to me that it does not take into account the fact that people who were killed during the war do not risk being killed by cancer later… :o
Anecdote != Data and all that, but my father started a 35-year habit in basic training (1951) because his drill sergeant allowed smoke breaks… but only to smokers. Non-smokers had no breaks.
It probably isn’t hard to extrapolate what the non-smokers decided to do with rules like that.
It’s still happening. My son did a four-year hitch in the army and came out smoking for exactly that reason. He quit within five years of leaving the army, though.
I went through basic training back in 1986. Smoking was already banned in basic training back then. I guess it’s possible that it was reinstated, but I find that unlikely.
I went through Navy Basic in 1989. Smoking was banned as well. The impression I have in my memory, from my smoker friends was that even after getting out of Basic, the regulations for smokers were harsher than those outside NTC Orlando, because the base followed Federal guidelines, and the surrounding areas followed Florida state guidelines.
I think Exapno Mapcase called this right on the button. Cecil missed the actual question. I can believe that there were probably some people who picked up smoking because of how prevalent it was in the service at the time. I can also believe that the majority of inductees had already made their personal choices about whether to smoke, or not, by the time they arrived to bootcamp.
It’s still banned, but the concept holds true after training. You get to your first duty station, and you see that every couple of hours, all the smokers drop what they’re doing and run outside to smoke, while everyone else keeps on working. Eventually, some of the non-smokers are gonna cry foul and head outside with them, and then it’s only a matter of peer pressure.
Of course, I noticed the same scenario play out at all the jobs I had prior to joining the military, so I don’t think it’s unique to those in uniform. Except that maybe the regulated “15 minute break per 4 hours of work” rule that most blue collar civilians get to enjoy might take some of the heat off.