"Smoking's Not Going to Kill Us, They Are:" Tobacco on the Cold War Border

I started watching "Band of Brothers" again, the HBO series about American paratroopers in World War II.

At the beginning of episode 2, the paratroopers are on a C-47 transport plane flying toward Normandy in the middle of the night of June 5-6. In moments they will be the first invading troops, crowded on slow-moving airplanes flying into intense anti-aircraft fire then jumping from the planes.

By morning a third of them will be killed, wounded or missing. The men in the plane rub Rosary beads, drum their fingers, tap their feet, and stare vacantly. Some pray. A few others light up cigarettes.

My well-trained, health-focused 21st Century mind immediately thought "that's unhealthy" and I smiled. Then I thought of a joke about second-hand smoke in a plane with its jump door removed, open to the night sky.

I smoked when I was a tank commander on the East-West border in the late 1970s. I looked across that border and thought the Soviet Army would invade and my tank would be part of a vastly outnumbered defense of the free world. And that I would have the survival potential of a rabbit at a wolf reunion.

"Smoking's not gonna kill us, they are!" I could say with some confidence looking East.

The Soviets did not invade. I quit smoking before the Soviet Union collapsed, so I am still alive to write this blog post.

By then end of World War II, less than a year later, the majority of the men in those planes on D-Day were dead or wounded. Smoking didn't kill them. The Nazis did.

Talking Racing and Cheating with a Richmond Cab Driver

Cale Yarborough, NASCAR Champion

I took a train to Richmond to visit my daughter and son-in-law. I took a cab to their house from the station. The driver was a local guy in his early 70s with six-year-old Chrysler 200 cab. He had the gravely voice of an ex-smoker and was very friendly.  In a couple of minutes it was clear we were both veterans. He was drafted and served in the late 60s, getting out just before I enlisted. 

The other thing we had in common was being NASCAR fans from the 60s through the early 2000s when we both drifted away from being fans.  In between the directions announced by GPS, we talked about being fans in the 60s. Ed drove slowly so we had a lot of time to talk on the 9-mile trip. 

Ed had followed the many drivers who drove for JuniorJohnson, one of the NASCAR originals. Ed met Cale Yarborough when Cale drove for Junior. We also talked about Darrell Waltrip a three-time champion who is now an announcer. 

Then I mentioned seeing a couple of races at the Richmond track and wishing I could have ridden my bike at the annual bicycle race on the Richmond NASCAR track.  This led us to talking about in NASCAR and bicycle racing. So we talked about Lance Armstrong and Waltrip and how different cheating is in motorsports and endurance sports. 

He knew Armstrong cheated, but he didn’t know how. I explained blood doping. I told Ed after Armstrong and Floyd Landis I never watched the Tour de France again.  We talked about how in motorsports the cheating is done in the car, not in the driver’s body, so when the cheater gets caught, the offending part is removed and the driver can race the following week. 

We also talked about the death of Dale Earnhardt at Daytona in 2001. Both of us stopped being fans soon after because NASCAR made all the cars identical and both of us had become fans when it was actually modified street cars that raced on short tracks and the high banks at Daytona and Talledega.

Always interesting to meet up with a Cold War veteran.

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Two Guys Comment on the Book I am Reading: How Fascism Works

Reading Hannah Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism" led me to start reading Jason Stanley's "How Fascism Works." I happened to be reading the fascism book on a bench in 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. There was a guy napping on the bench opposite me. He woke up, looked at the cover of the book, came over and sat next to me.

He said, "Tell me how that works. Just a quick summary." So I said, "Attack the press, discredit opponents and all history, attack a scapegoat minority and you are on the way." He thanked me.

Then he said, "My girlfriend told me the FBI said I can't ever call her or see her again in my entire life. I think they have to take me to court or arrest me or something. They wouldn't just tell her. Right?"

I said I don't know much about law, but that sounded right. He kept talking. I went to my train.

On the train, a conductor I see once in a while, a veteran, saw me reading the book and making notes in it. He said, "You are always reading some crazy shit." He laughed and kept checking tickets. When I got off the train, I passed him in the doorway.

"You take care Sarge," he said and started laughing again.

We both served in Cold War mechanized units. We talked about the Cold War a couple of times and how crazy it was that it ended. Once in a while when we were on the same train he would see me studying Ancient Greek or Russian and say, "You are one weird dude."