Words in a waltz

Aside from shortage of food supplies, the scarcity of cigarettes in Iraq has several soldiers imploring domestic producers to ship them some free smokes. And as if efforts by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. to satisfy them aren’t enough, someone closer home is organizing to funnel free Camels and Marlboros to the front lines. For the first remote broadcast of his WSCR-AM (670) morning show, Mike North will amass cigarettes to be sent to soldiers in the war zones overseas. His “Smokes for Soldiers" campaign will be kicked off on Dec. 9 at Jack's Restaurant, Skokie. Score listeners will be requested to donate packs, or cartons, if they will, of cigarettes. Is it plain ironic that North himself is a non-smoker, and that Jack’s is strictly a non-smoking bistro?

Well, while at that, health officials aren’t exactly touched by the gesture either. Even as more and more troops are lighting up the pipe, blaming it on the tension, tedium and loneliness that life in a battlefield can bring, health officials fret that they will have to combat lung cancer, or heart disease down the years, when they're back home, and narrating war stories to their grand kids, perhaps. Amidst roadside bombings and grenade strikes, soldiers are ostensibly in for a bigger hazard, say experts, and this one, ‘can’t be stalled even by the best of weapons or shields.’ Ah well, holy smoke, or whatever.