11/15/2004 08:20:37 AM|||Toni|||Didn't ya just know this was going to happen!! When I saw the picture the first thing that crossed my mind was the smoking police were going to have a fit and looks like that's what happened. Glad I wasn't disappointed.

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today - November 12, 2004

The Horrors of WarThe other day, the front pages of both the New York Post and the Houston Chronicle featured a photograph of a U.S. Marine in Fallujah, who happened to have a cigarette dangling from his mouth. This brought out the health police in both cities. Here are a pair of letters that appeared in the Chronicle:
I was shocked to see the large photograph on Nov. 10. A tired, dirty and brave Marine rests after a battle--but with a cigarette dangling from his mouth! Lots of children, particularly boys, play "army" and like to imitate this young man. The clear message of the photo is that the way to relax after a battle is with a cigarette.
The truth is very different from that message. Most of our troops don't smoke. And most importantly, this young man is far more likely to die a horrible death from his tobacco addiction than from his tour of duty in Iraq.
DR. DANIEL MALONEY The Woodlands
I opened the Chronicle this morning and got slapped in the face by a huge picture of a "battle weary" Marine with a fine looking cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
I respect everyone's rights, but do we really need to encourage our young people to think that this is part of required military gear?
MAYNARD HOVLAND League City
And in the Post:
How much did Phillip Morris pay for the front cover advertisement? Thank you for continuing to encourage the development of cancer.
Mark Leininger Manhattan
The Post's cover was horrible and crude. How could you compare our soldiers to the Marlboro Man? We are not "kicking butt" in Iraq. We are in an unjustified war with a people who will never allow democracy to come to their country.
Janna Passuntino Manhattan
I was shocked to see the front page of your newspaper. Showing a GI smoking and portraying it as being cool is disgusting, to say the least.
First of all, you are promoting smoking, even though it is a health hazard. Secondly, our brave men and women are fighting a tough war in Iraq, and to show them as you did does not do them justice.
Maybe showing a Marine in a tank, helping another GI or drinking water would have had a more positive impact on your readers. Smoking should be outlawed, not endorsed.
Ali Mahdi North Brunswick, N.J.
Post reader Hank Sbordone of Middletown, N.J., however, has a different view: "Thank God New York isn't occupied by terrorists. Mayor Bloomberg wouldn't allow a Marine who smokes to enter the city. He would probably rather be a prisoner than see someone smoke."

Update: 3pm

There's more on this lucky fellow...you could call it unintended consequences. He's now a hearthrob. YUP. The chicks are drooling buddy.

From OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today - November 15, 2004

Here's a follow-up on the story we noted Friday about the famous photo of a smoking Marine: The Los Angeles Times reports he is Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller, a 20-year-old native of Jonancey, Ky. Times photographer Luis Sinco snapped the picture that has turned Miller into something of a sex symbol:
The Los Angeles Times and other publications have received scores of e-mails wanting to know about this mysterious figure. Many women, in particular, have inquired about how to contact him. "The photo captures his weariness, yet his eyes hold the spirit of the hunter and the hunted," wrote one e-mailing admirer. "His gaze is warm but deadly. I want to send a letter."
Blake complains that he's running low on cigarettes: "Tell Marlboro I'm down to four packs, and I'm here in Fallujah till who knows when. Maybe they can send some. And they can bring down the price a bit." Miller smokes three packs a day, and the company medic, Anthony Lopez, tells the paper: "I tried to get him to stop--the cigarettes will kill him before the war. I get on him all the time. But this guy is a true Marlboro man."
Lopez is right, of course, but that doesn't make Linda Ortman any less ridiculous. Ortman's scolding letter appeared in the Dallas Morning News Thursday (third letter):
Are there no photos of nonsmoking soldiers in Iraq?
We are all aware of how important it is to help people stop smoking because of health risks.
Please, Dallas Morning News, be more sensitive. Youth are easily influenced. Let's stop reinforcing the smoking habit. Stop publishing photos like the one on the front page Wednesday.
The next day, a wonderful reply came from Steven Mitchell (third letter):
As an ex-smoker and ex-Marine, I have to agree with Ms. Ortman about how easily our youth are influenced. As soon as I made it home Wednesday afternoon, my 10-year-old asked me to take him to buy a pack of Camels and find the nearest recruiter's office. And, please, can't we get them to wash their faces first?
In truth, I'm amazed that you printed that nonsense.
The fuss over smoking warriors is nothing new. In 1917 G.K. Chesterton published an essay called "The Dregs of Puritanism" about a minister in Bromley, England, who was objecting to people sending cigarettes to British soldiers fighting World War I:
There is the lack of imaginative proportion, which rises into a sort of towering blasphemy. An enormous number of live young men are being hurt by shells, hurt by bullets, hurt by fever and hunger and horror of hope deferred; hurt by lance blades and sword blades and bayonet blades breaking into the bloody house of life. But Mr. Price (I think that's his name) is still anxious that they should not be hurt by cigarettes. That is the sort of maniacal isolation that can be found in the deserts of Bromley.
These days, of course, fanaticism over hygiene is a largely secular phenomenon. Indeed, one wonders if some of those who're offended by Cpl. Miller's vice won't soon be complalining that this photo violates the separation of church and state.
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