This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
FORWARD OPERATING BASE Q-WEST, Iraq - Capt. David Cochran, who commands the Utah National Guard's 116th Engineers, is about to quit smoking.
His company has been in Iraq the past 10 months, running convoy escorts through northern Iraq, dodging roadside bombs and getting hit by IEDs. About a third of them have had their bells rung hard by the roadside bombs. One of them was injured badly and had to be sent home.
The past couple of weeks, the Utahns have been showing the ropes to the new-in-town Indiana National Guard's Alpha Company 2 of the 150.
Cochran, 40, who has a wife and three children and is a computer programmer for a bank, has been smoking a pack a day of Marlboro Lights.
As Cochran's unit's deployment comes to an end, so, too, will his cigarette habit. It's unusual to turn on and off such a powerful addiction, but it's not unheard of in the military. Many soldiers smoke or dip, but at least some say that once their deployment ends, so does their smoking.
Cochran and his soldiers will fly to Kuwait and then to Camp Shelby, Miss. There, Cochran plans to have his final smoke before he boards the flight to Salt Lake City.
He has done this before - smoking hard then quitting suddenly. It was during a 2004 deployment guarding a chemical depot in Utah.
"As soon as duty ends, the psychological addiction ends," Cochran says. "The chemical addiction I'll take care of by the [nicotine] patch."
Cochran said he has never enjoyed smoking. It doesn't help him stay awake, nor does it relax him.
What it does, he says, is force him to pause.
"To smoke, you have to step away and do nothing for a few minutes," Cochran says, "and it's that mental break that I find helpful."