You Have To Be F**king Kidding Me

This is a joke about the "Good Idea Fairy". A mythical creature anyone in the military has known that comes around and gives the superiors "great ideas" on how to chance policies and SOPs to make things "better". However, the Good Idea Fairy is decidedly Un-Good, because it usually makes work harder, and only serves to piss off soldiers.

Now please prepare for a doozy.

In this article, a report developed on comission from the Pentagon has decided to urge the Department of Defense to ban any and all smoking in the military in order to save money on related health costs.

My favorite was the following quote: If the monetary costs of smoking don’t get the attention of Pentagon brass, the report also identified what it said was a “strong association between tobacco addiction and mental-health problems, among them mood disorders, schizophrenia and substance abuse” — not exactly the state that generals and admirals want their gun-toting charges to be in.

So wait, let me get this straight. They're connecting tobacco use with mood disorders and schizophrenia? I don't know much about mental disorders. I DO know that those types of disorders are genetic in nature and cannot be caused purely by an outside factor.

Also, seriously? Remove smoking completely? Soldiers and sailors constantly work out, eat well (at least in mess halls), and work in a safe environment (while not in wartime). If smoking is their only vice, I think they're gonna be okay.

Reading comments at the bottom of this article, a few people brought up the slippery slope arguement. If first smoking, what next? Remove all the Burger Kings from post? Remove all the soda machines? Stop selling Ding Dongs and remove alcohol from post?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is only a portion of why I had to leave the Army. The Army is not my fathers Army. The Army is slowly sliding into a sea of magoo, family friendly b.s. Officer clubs gave away to Community Clubs. Nowadays, if you're a single soldier, you pretty much get the backend of many benefits (i.e. maybe I wanted to live on post? Ah, I'm not married with kids, I'll get my butt off your post then.)

Flat out, this is just wrong. If smoking is banned from the military, John Wayne will come back and just start punching people out. Seriously.