Do you think it’s okay for soldiers to be able to drink and smoke? America we might have a problem.
Drinking
Well, according to the CDC around 27,000 people across 25 different industries responded to surveys on alcohol consumption during the period of 2013 and 2017, with the average person reportedly consuming at least one drink 91 days per year.
With everything tallied military personnel ranked number one leading all industries in the consumption of alcohol. They spend about a 1/3 of the year doing so with 130 days. Is that really a lot? Because most of my family are in construction and they came a close second with 106 days out the year drinking alcohol, and I’m sure they beat the military by a mile.
They’ve also found that veterans who go drinking and driving have gone up 60 percent since 2014 stemming from PTSD, which has caused them to binge drink in excess, not to sound redundant. Many bases allow for alcohol to be sold at commissaries and at the age of 18 years old.
Marines have a higher probability of committing crimes like this along with missed work or other personal problems, while the Airforce has the lowest rate of drinking issues. The defense department has said the military’s binge drinking has cost them over $1 billion in production.
Smoking
It appears the marines suffer from another problem above all other branches of the military. Smoking! Listen I smoke and I know it’s not good for me and I think my stresses are bad, I could only imagine the struggles they have to go through.
Truth Initiative also reports that nearly 1/3 of current smokers started once they joined the service, while those who start smoking, proceed to do so more frequently once deployed. It doesn’t help that the non-smoking policies are flexible and rarely enforced.
A large-scale study of active-duty Army men and women found that there was a 60 percent (men) and 15 percent (women) greater risk of lost workdays due to hospitalization, and a 7 percent and 54 percent greater risk, respectively, of lost workdays related to injuries among those who smoked than among nonsmokers. Lost days at work could be dangerous in combat units due to a loss of total manpower.
Military personnel who smoke are less productive and do not perform as well on physical fitness tests relative to nonsmoking personnel. Do these people need a vice? Any other suggestions? May God help all the veterans and give them the strength they need especially if they have severe addiction problems.