This article does a pretty good job of highlighting a significant problem the Army has. Unfortunately, it is not the one the author was trying to highlight. It is the annoying tendency of the Army to misidentify a problem or to overreact to a problem. In this article it is an issue of,there are individuals abusing a given system so therefore the solution must be to change the system. That way the few individuals who are abusing the system can no longer abuse it nor can the majority who were not abusing it use it either. This is a particular pet peeve of mine. This is why we have clearing barrels outside of all of out buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan, because it is easier to to simply take the bullets away then to ensure that our soldiers can safely carry a weapon (warrior ethos my @#$).

This article may be well argued from a legal stand-point, as far as what reg says what but it does little to deal with the realities of day to day operations. First, "smoke sessions" work. They can be an extremely effective tool. The author never even addresses that fact, preferring to reference a few egregious examples of abuse of the system in a transparent attempt to paint the whole system as corrupt. Is this tool appropriate for every situation? Of course not. There are no one size fits all solutions out there, and we all know that but there are plenty of situations out there where it is appropriate, such as the example Anthony pointed out. There is also what I take to be an elitist undertone throughout this article. There is an implication that NCOs are either too prone to abuse to be able use this system effectively or are too uneducated (I found this statement to be particularly offensive, If smoke sessions are to be prohibited, they should be prohibited explicitly, using the vernacular of the enlisted Soldiers to whom these issues are relevant. "You gots to dumb it down for them enlisted guys or they won't git it.") Bottom line, NCOs are expected to keep order and discipline but they need effective tools to do so and "you do what I tell you or I'm going to go run and get an officer," is not one of those tools.

SFC W