SMOKIN' IN THE SERVICE

WE SET up a security perimeter and pop a smoke grenade to bring in the
helicopter carrying our field re-supply. The chopper comes in, dumps its
cargo and bounces out at top speed. Our C-rations are 12 to a case.

A small group divides the meals into equal lots for the men on the
perimeter. Each man breaks the boxes apart, stuffs the cans into boot socks
and ties the socks to his pistol belt.

The foil accessory packs that come with each C are ripped open and the
contents stored. Toilet paper is snapped onto the elastic bands that holds
the camo covers on our helmets, or stowed inside helmets, the driest place
we own. The four-packs of cigarettes are stored or bartered depending on
whether the soldier smokes. Most do.

Next, the pile of cigarette cartons is addressed. The brands are not
popular ones, but cigarettes are cigarettes. Most everybody knows what the
others smoke, or will settle for, and the division goes quickly.
Helicopters attract a lot of enemy attention, and we want out of the area
ASAP. Ammo, medical supplies, mail and radio batteries are distributed, and
we move out.

We only pay $1 a carton for cigarettes in base camp, but, like toilet
paper, they are vulnerable to moisture, and they crush easily. Without the
extra cartons, we would have to go without. The Army takes care of that for
us. In fact, the Army makes damn sure we aren't without cigarettes - one
reason the black market flourishes as it does.

The same thing happened in WWII, the Korean war, and the times between.
Cigarettes were provided to military personnel at vastly reduced prices, or
free. Those that didn't smoke sold them on the local black market.

It's now 1998 and our current prez has decided that veterans with
smoking-related illnesses will not be treated by the VA.

American men and women who enter military service are assured that the
Veterans Administration will take care of their medical needs, if
necessary, for the rest of their lives, as long as their service obligation
is met and they have an honorable discharge. In order to hedge on this
promise, Congress has passed legislation that prevents veterans from
seeking legal redress from the VA - a law that is not advertised.

So what have we got now? A contract that provides a service, with no means
of redress for a breach of that contract? I think.

President Clinton has seriously attacked tobacco companies for ad programs
that attract youths to smoking. He has also attempted to force these
companies to pony up for medical costs caused by smoking. But he has not
attempted to punish individual citizens for smoking - until now.

The U.S. did not merely provide its military personnel with cigarettes, it
pushed them at us. One of the first commands we heard in basic training
was, "Rest! Smoke em if you got em!" Cigarettes have been sold at discount
at military bases until very recently.

Of course, there is another reason for denying veterans health care.
Clinton is attempting to transfer the proposed savings his policy will
produce to a Federal Highway Repair Bill. Every president since Nixon has
seriously slashed the VA budget, and this is just a back-door effort to do
the same thing.

What we have is a glaring example of Clinton's duplicity. The man entered
office on a health care reform platform. Having failed to accomplish
anything real, he is now denying a large number of poor Americans health
care in an area where he has power to provide that care - the VA, an
organization that no longer has the funds to provide the services it was
chartered for.

We are your heroes, America. We gave our future, our lives, limbs and
mental health to protect this same government that now would like us to
disappear. I leave you with this: A veteran enters a VA hospital with a
heart attack. The divinity on duty decides it's smoking related. Where does
the veteran go? How about we don't let this happen?

Examiner contributor Will Farris served as a combat medic in South Vietnam
in 1996-97. He lives in an isolated area of the Sierra and has a 100
percent service-connected disability rating from the VA for post traumatic
stress disorder.

1998 San Francisco Examiner Page A 21

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski