A few days ago, I climbed up over the rocky hill on the way to my neighbor’s house. I carried a couple of cigars, a bottle of scotch, and two cups. Rick Brown retired from the Marines as a colonel a few years ago and recently agreed to my offer of drinks and a smoke in exchange for a story about his service.
I’ve no doubt Rick would have offered his story for free, but the drink and cigar created a great excuse to get together with a neighbor and reminded Rick of one aspect of his service in the war in Iraq.
“You know World War II, Korea, and Vietnam offered servicemen different vices when they came off the line.” He talked about how alcohol had been available to those who had served in past wars and how cigarettes were once standard issue. But in Iraq and Afghanistan, alcohol was forbidden, and only privately purchased tobacco products remained to help a Marine relax after a tense mission.
While aboard ship in 2004, Rick, then a major, waited to hear if he and his fellow Marines would get deployed to address trouble in Sudan, in support of the first election in Afghanistan, or to combat in Fallujah, Iraq. At that time, Rick befriended a Marine Corps chaplain, the two of them the only ones who smoked pipes.
They were always happy to hear the announcement over the ship’s speakers. “The smoker’s lamp is lit.” It was the signal that no more fuel or ordnance was getting transported and smoking was allowed in the designated area.
But as the ship neared Kuwait, Maj. Brown and his chaplain friend were perilously low on pipe tobacco. They had only a three-day supply remaining. Once they were ashore, a Kuwaiti American Marine dentist asked to go see her family in the country. This was out of the ordinary, but Brown granted the short leave on the condition that she bring back pipe tobacco. She was their last hope.
Unfortunately, she returned with a defeated look on her face and the sad news that, having checked all the stores, she had failed in her mission.
They were down to a one-day supply. The less tobacco that remained, the more depressed the chaplain became. Some days he wouldn’t even get out of his rack.
A lieutenant overheard them talking about their dilemma. “You guys looking for tobacco?” he asked. “Don’t worry. One of my men can help you out. I’ll send him right away.”
Later, when the lance corporal reported, he had no idea why these officers wanted to see him, but he grinned when he heard about the tobacco crisis. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
He left and returned with two gallon-size Ziploc bags full of pipe tobacco. It turned out the lance corporal’s uncle was a tobacco mix master from Tennessee. The kid had an endless supply of American pipe tobacco and cigars, the best Brown had experienced. “It had a deep flavor and was easy to light.”
It reminded me of the way a certain manufacturer of cheap cigars sent a case of their products to me in Afghanistan in response to my inquiry about direct order. Those silly little things helped us fight off sleep through long overnight guard shifts.
Rick puffed the cigar I had brought him. “Yeah, the lance corporal’s tobacco helped us get through Iraq.”
Something as simple as a cigar or a pipe full of tobacco may not seem like much, but it can help keep a service member awake on guard duty or provide a much-needed break from the tension. And a few days ago with Rick Brown, cigars helped forge a connection between neighbors across the property line and between wars across the years.
Trent Reedy served as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
