Smokes for the Boys: A History of Smoking and the Military

 

(Smoking Jacket) ... Modern historians often conveniently forget that smoking was very important to the military, and even today, smoking among soldiers is more prevalent than it is among the civilian population, with some disparity between different military branches.  Modern historians attribute this to a campaign by tobacco companies during World War I to distribute free tobacco products to the soldiers, eventually resulting in the inclusion of packs of cigarettes in soldier rations, beginning in 1916 and ending only recently in the late twentieth century. This is painted by modern historians as a massive advertising campaign and insidious plot to hook soldiers and sailors on tobacco products. Continued