Russian army boots cigarettes
| July 30, 2009 | 3:16 PM
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Talk about a smoke bomb — this will have many Russian soldiers seeing red.
The Russian army has declared partial war on cigarettes. And it’s sending in candy to take their place.
The military is mustering out tobacco from soldiers’ rations and enlisting caramel and sugar, a top general said Thursday. The army isn’t banning smoking altogether, Lieutenant-General Dmitry Bulgakov said — it just won’t provide free cigarettes anymore, and troops will have to buy them from stores.
Guess the brass isn’t worried about anyone walking a mile off the line for a Camel. Or about defections over the confections.
Read more at AFP.
In other unusual military news:
- As many as 100 wild burros will be rounded up and put up for adoption because they keep invading the U.S. Army’s Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert. Read more at latimes.com.
- The Navy has scuttled plans for a mini submarine for the SEALs that has been in the works since the 1990s, because it caught fire and would cost too much to repair — $237 million. Read more at The Virginia-Pilot.
- After the U.S. and other countries spent $10 million to build it, what was meant to be sort of an Emerald City in Afghanistan has turned into a ghost town. Read more at abcnews.com.
- A retiring Army colonel at the Pentagon served himself up a 36-year-old military-issue pound cake that he had been hanging onto since Vietnam. No word on any stomach-related assault yet. Read more at cnn.com.
Afghanistan, burros, candy, cigarettes, ghost town, pentagon, pound cake, Russian army, seals, submarine
