cigarette question

[Alpo]

When you don't want the enemy to know that you've been around, you don't leave cigarette butts laying around. You rip the paper, scatter the loose tobacco, and the cigarette paper itself will pretty much disappear the first time it gets rained on. There is a term for this.

I just saw the term "field strip" used for this procedure. I can't pull the correct term out of my memory, but field strip doesn't seem right.

 

 

This doesn't work as well when you smoke filters.

[Pat Riot]

“Field Strip” and no, it doesn’t with either filters. Those go in your pocket so you stink like cigarette butts. 
 

Side bar: I have often wondered how many men have died or caused others to die because they were detected due to the smell of smoke or the smell of smoking on them in conflicts. 
 

Imagine you’re a guerrilla fighter and in the bush for an extended time. The smell of cigarette butts in someone’s pocket or even the smell of smoke would probably be a lot easier to detect due to your senses being better tuned in. 

I know the term “three on a match is bad luck” when lighting other’s cigarettes due to having a lit match attract enemy gunfire on the front in WW1. At least that is where I heard the term came from. 

[Rye Miles #13621]

I’ve always heard field strip also and I agree with Pat on the filters. They go in your pocket. Probably better to use non filters.

[Texas Joker]

Americans just smell different due to our diet. Not just smoke. To blend you have to eat local goods so you don't smell like processed cheeseburger and fries and sweat beer.

[Duffield, SASS #23454]

To properly field strip a cigarette you scatter the tobacco, roll the paper into a ball smaller than a gnat's A** and fluff the filter so that it looks like a dandelion, then discard. 

This is per SSG Davis, FT Knox, Kentucky, June 1965.

[Matthew Duncan]

Had a boss that liked to sneak up on employees.  He was also a chain smoker.  I could smell him coming.

[Grass Range]

Three on a match started during the Civil War. I was reprimanded at Ft. Chaffee for not picking up cig butts during police call. I told the DI I did not smoke and would not pick up after some slob who did and threw his butts on the ground. Every where you go now there are cig butts everywhere.

[Pat Riot]

39 minutes ago, Grass Range said:

Three on a match started during the Civil War. I was reprimanded at Ft. Chaffee for not picking up cig butts during police call. I told the DI I did not smoke and would not pick up after some slob who did and threw his butts on the ground. Every where you go now there are cig butts everywhere.

I had not heard this about the Civil War. Thanks.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah...War of  Northern Aggression...I know, I know...

[Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217]

1 hour ago, Matthew Duncan said:

Had a boss that liked to sneak up on employees.  He was also a chain smoker.  I could smell him coming.

This reminds me of two women I worked with. They would have a cigarette before every unit meeting. PUUU! I never wanted to sit next to them and it was bad being shut in a small room with them.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

4 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

Americans just smell different due to our diet. Not just smoke. To blend you have to eat local goods so you don't smell like processed cheeseburger and fries and sweat beer.

My Japanese friends informed me that Americans smell like butter.  Okay by me.  I like butter.

[Texas Lizard]

42 minutes ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

My Japanese friends informed me that Americans smell like butter.  Okay by me.  I like butter.

I have been told this also....I guess that is why I could also ways pick up Japanese girls very easy...In my younger days....OK much younger days...I like my asian women...I guess that is way I married one...Chinese girl...A little more stubborn than Japanese...Sometimes a little harder to deal with too...

 

Texas Lizard

[Pariah, SASS #26619]

I think "three on a match" actually dates from the Boer War. Matches and cigarettes were not common at the time of the American Civil War - cigars and chewing tobacco were the norm.

[Waxahachie Kid #17017 L]

When we would make ready to go on patrol, back in the day, anyone that smoked would not be allowed to smoke, or chew gum, or use deodorant, or aftershave, or even shave, or be in clean clothes...for a while beforehand. That was the rule for our group, not anything official. We knew this was not enough, but we felt it might possibly give us a small edge.  

But, we did smell different anyway, than the Vietnamese, and we knew it. Our clothes, our weapons, our diet, among other things, caused that. Of course our weapons sounded differently, when fired, thus we tried to use captured AK's, even though most of them were not in very good shape, and were not all that accurate. They could fire if muddy, or wet, or abused, but we are not talking about an AK new-in-the-box, off the shelves. But if you had to fire a weapon, out in the jungle, we hoped that using an AK would not so readily make it known that we were Americans. Someone a few klicks away might think it was friendly fire. That depended on your mission, and where you were, and how long you were to be out, etc. 

But the smoking had to cease for a while, before we went on patrol. Any edge, real or perceived, we latched on to.

I do not know if every unit did this, or if any other group did this. We did. 

Water way under the old bridge, and no one cares anymore...if they ever did. 

 

 

   

[Chili Ron]

Howdy,

I have a zippo that about half the chrome is worn off.

Said to have been in the pocket of a Marine in Viet Nam.

It still works perfect and I carry it sometimes.

After all how can I hurt it?

Somebody smoked a lot and made it back.

Best

CR