Small Question.

LIBERTY

Active member
Can you smoke at basic? I know it may be a stupid question but I'm fixing to enlist in a 2 months. And I want to see if I should quiet smoking before hand.Also before anyone says anything I'm in fairly decent shape so I'm not worried about the PT and all.:wink:

Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
you cant smoke at all during Basic. if you take an ciggarettes with you,or a lighter, they make you throw them away. definitely quit now.
 
Also, if you're going to quit, don't light up the minute you step off the bus at the airport to go home after you graduate. There must've been at least 40 privates with cigarettes in hand as soon as they were released from basic. As long as you do the right thing, you'll be golden.
 
LIBERTY said:
Can you smoke at basic? I know it may be a stupid question but I'm fixing to enlist in a 2 months. And I want to see if I should quiet smoking before hand.Also before anyone says anything I'm in fairly decent shape so I'm not worried about the PT and all.:wink:​


Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.​

Nope, they aren't going to let you smoke and yup, you should quit smoking beforehand. Basic will be stressful enough without adding nicotine withdraws to it.

As for "fairly decent shape," that's not very good. At your age, you should be in great shape, esp. since you want to join the military. "Fairly decent shape" screams of settling for average. When it comes to your health and fitness, you should always have the desire and drive to surpass the standards.

Make sure you can pass the PT test before you leave, try to get a perfect score.

 
And just think about this, when I went in, if you didn't smoke before, you usually started. Every break was a smoke break (fall out and smoke 'em if you got 'em.) The barracks had butt cans at every door and the first thing you learned was how to "field strip" a butt.
 
Well, smoking isn't allowed in the US Army during basic. As a IET, you can't have anything like soda, smokes, snacks from the vending machines, and such.

All I remember is this though. There is a black market in the barracks. Don't buy crap from them. If you get busted, you'll get Article 15. Also they charge something like $50 a pack.

Thank the good lord I never smoked cigarettes, only cigars. And I am not addicted to them either. It's just for taste.
 
Thanks for the info. But PJ yeah I understand what you are saying and I'll try to do alot more of PT. :)
 
No smokes and no dip either... at Bliss we had a roster and guys took turns going over the wire fence at night after bed check and humping it to the CircleK about a mile off across open ground with a shopping list and cash to requistion supplies. We thought we were pretty clever, snickers bars, beer, cigarettes and me with my Kodiak.

I of course was relaxing one early evening with a dip in my mouth when the Senior Drill Sergeant had us fall out. I am standing there with a cheek full of tobacco and I had never learned to gut it so I am dying to spit... I moved and tried to spit next to my boot and hoped no one would see in the twilight... wrong.

Another drill sergeant was behind us and he went ballistic... next thing I know I have swallowed my whole dip and am down beating my face... I puke and continue pushing them out till I collapsed in my vomit... I could have stopped if I had told them how I got the dip but I figured I would rather suck it up than have my ass kicked in by my platoon.

Good news was that I quit. To this day I cannot smell anything close to wintergreen without getting dry heaves.

Listen to PJ and quit now, it will make life much easier. Going into basic trying to kick an addiction is a recipe for added heartache.
 
bulldogg said:
No smokes and no dip either... at Bliss we had a roster and guys took turns going over the wire fence at night after bed check and humping it to the CircleK about a mile off across open ground with a shopping list and cash to requistion supplies. We thought we were pretty clever, snickers bars, beer, cigarettes and me with my Kodiak.

I of course was relaxing one early evening with a dip in my mouth when the Senior Drill Sergeant had us fall out. I am standing there with a cheek full of tobacco and I had never learned to gut it so I am dying to spit... I moved and tried to spit next to my boot and hoped no one would see in the twilight... wrong.

Another drill sergeant was behind us and he went ballistic... next thing I know I have swallowed my whole dip and am down beating my face... I puke and continue pushing them out till I collapsed in my vomit... I could have stopped if I had told them how I got the dip but I figured I would rather suck it up than have my ass kicked in by my platoon.

Good news was that I quit. To this day I cannot smell anything close to wintergreen without getting dry heaves.

Listen to PJ and quit now, it will make life much easier. Going into basic trying to kick an addiction is a recipe for added heartache.


I would be scared to even think about jumping the fence.
 
I began smoking at basic/boot camp, and on the first exercise I began with the chew/snuff tobacco as well which has been with me since. While serving the Airforce I smoked 40 a day in my office (yup.... ) or a pack of rolling tobacco on two days :shoothea:

On my tour abroad make that 20 and a box of chew on a normal day.

Me idiot, yes I know :bang: I can't even remember why I began smoking or chewing/snuffing, but I guess it was due to complete boredom in basic/boot and the guys in my squad were mostly smokers. It also might have turned out of the stress level and my attempt to control stress by nicotine, but when you are on a 14 day winter exercise in the middle of darkness and your last cigarette is gone on day 4 - you have a serious stress problem and how to solve that? Smoke the ENDEX cigar? :cen: no!

bulldogg said:
Addictions will make you do stupid things.

On another exercise we had tobacco but no cigarette paper, so we used the sheets of paper from The New Testament we were issued two days earlier by the chaplain, and rolled our finest having a good time - just to find ourselves ending up at the hospital being seriously poisoned by the smoke from the papersheets. What comes around, goes around - and on that day I know God snapped us very hard.

So save yourself for a lot of hazzle, quit smoking - put the money you save on your penny pig and get yourself that car or vacation you always wanted. Cause you can afford it - just quit smoking!
 
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Sounded like God was pretty pissed. haha But yeah I'm going to cut down day by day until I completely quit. So thanks everyone for the support.:)
 
I quit a two pack a day habit of smoking Lucky Strikes cold turkey and haven't wanted one since. That was 41 years ago.
 
Every break was a smoke break (fall out and smoke 'em if you got 'em.) The barracks had butt cans at every door and the first thing you learned was how to "field strip" a butt.

Still the same at my regiment. Although the RSM keeps hassling everyone to quit.
 
The only tobacco I got during basic was the Copenhagen my Drills spit in my face while yelling at me. Dip and eyes just don't mix.
 
This forum is for answering questions....unless you have some experience to impart, we have a General Discussions forum for your conversing needs.

ALL off topic posts have now been removed. Henderson, I suggest you read my PM.
 
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