Originally Posted by
JamesNoBrakes
My brother told me that it people smoking caught stuff on fire all the time on ships. I know they have designated "smoking areas", but the extent to which smoking is rampant in the military and anything associated with it, is absolutely staggering IME. It all kind of stems from the "don't worry about your body now, push it to the max", which includes drinking, medical issues that show up later in life, inappropriate diagnoses and treatments, and so on. Command does little to discourage it and they tend to see it as a "right" that these people "need to be able to smoke", so the inevitable outcome is fires caused by people smoking in areas they shouldn't be. Of course, there are plenty of other sources of fire...but this is one of the common ones...
Can these be extreme assignments? Oh yeah. For which, as you say, certain compensations are tacitly anticipated. Until an obvious transgression turns deadly for the non-complicit. Warships and warbirds are killing machines, as directed, whenever combat maneuvers move past exercise? Sophisticated systems got to perform. We all see the photo of the Lt. posted. Achiever, ring knocker, cool flight suit. How busting with pride her family must be. Still, as Badflaps alluded, the right time comes, just like all gunmen, can't lose too much sleep over dropping Bambi's mom yesterday. The duty call quote by Adm. Dunn to 'go forth and kick butt' seems a tad rosy.