C-rats gave you enough to eat, but they tasted like shit. Except for ham & eggs, or canned peaches.
Giving a guy ham & [strike]lima beans[/strike] motherfuckers was considered a flogging offense, and it necessitated distributing the open case meals label-down, and choosing blind, lest fistfights break out.
Like all canned goods, they're edible as long as they're edible. (Don't open the bulged or leaking cans, ever.)
MRE's were tastier, but hardly adequate to the task. It took three or four of them to fill you up on any given day, if you could ever get that many.
And suffice it to say that the technology to dry out strawberries was still rather experimental for some packing companies, in a pouch-full-of-moldy-baby-shit way.
And Chicken-a-la-shit was a worthy successor to ham & motherfuckers in the no-one-will-trade-you-for-that-you-poor-bastard department.
And you lost the ham & eggs breakfast entrée on the MRE menu.
Anyone who eats them now, knowing that they have, at most, a 10-year shelf life (under ideal storage conditions only; trunk of the car is maybe a year) is suicidal, masochistic, idiotic, or some combination of all three.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Giving a guy ham & [strike]lima beans[/strike] motherfuckers was considered a flogging offense, and it necessitated distributing the open case meals label-down, and choosing blind, lest fistfights break out.
LOL! I remember doing that. "Don't look at it, just pick it up."
One thing I do remember about C-rats was that after several days, you'd tend to get clogged up. So, you''d find a can of peaches. Go to a quiet spot, assume the squatting position, and drink the juice out of those preaches. Problem solved.
I think I've posted before, but nothing says FTX (Field Training Exercise) like a cold can of ham and eggs in the rain after a night of patrolling and ambushes.
Had LRRP rations during SERE. Was given one for the the 2.5 days of evasion phase. The chili mac heated up OK (using a heat tab buried in the ground to heat water in a canteen cup. They said no open fires, didn't say no heat). Unfortunately a bottle of issued bug repellent opened up in my survival vest pocket and soaked the "rice krispie" bars giving them a pleasant kerosene flavor.
...even before I read MHI, my response to seeing a poster for the stars of the latest Twilight movies was "I see 2 targets and a collaborator".
Ugh, I've said it several times, and no one listens.
We need a "snack size" single-meal MRE. Two pieces of wheat snack bread, peanut butter, and jelly. Maybe a piece of gum and one of those God-awful bars. Fits easily in your cargo pocket, it should cost the servicemember like $1.50. DONE. Please for crap's sake, put both pieces of bread in the same pouch. And shrink the size of the pouch. The trash from this "snack size" MRE should fit comfortably in the slash pocket of a pair of jeans. Want to make it even easier? Put it all together like an Uncrustable, and dose it with their preservatives. Then you can eat it on the go. No, I'm not interested in gutting a First Strike ration. Maybe if they'd separate out the sandwiches.
Even when MREs are field-stripped, there's still a lot of trash. I know that it's more economical for the company to put similar-sized items into the same-sized packaging, but it's still too much to drag in and out.
You can tell who's been in the field a lot, because they start to personalize their food. Pouches of tuna and chicken are common, along with Jack's Links Beef Jerky. If you can scam it, a Jetboil and some ramen noodles or cheezy mac makes you feel like a king. One of my Marines found a gigantic supply of Tapatio hot sauce in individual packets. Beats the pants off Tabasco any day of the week.
Speaking of, I had a female Jewish student Marine come through MCT during Passover. She didn't tell anyone, and bargained away all of her MREs for wheat snack bread. That was all she ate for weeks, until she happened to mention it to the Chaplain (Christian, Korean, chaplain. One of my favorite, ever). There are kosher and halal MRE-equivalents, but she hadn't told any instructors. We got her some. Tough chick.
My MRE ideas:
-Our MREs compared to other nations tend to be very bland. Something about trying to cater to a great deal of different background cultures. Screw it. If you don't like it, trade it. Give us decent spice packets and salt.
-Put all of those stupid drink powders into a pellet form, like Nuun, or Airborne, or whatever. EXCEPT the dairyshake. If you mess with the dairyshake, there's going to be problems.
-Things need to be packaged more compactly, like I mentioned above.
-Add in a pouch/container of quality protein powder in every MRE. Easy and quick to drink, even if you feel like shit, and it gives you necessary protein and nutrients.
-Speaking of, we really need to update the canteen. At least make it wide-mouth so you can clean it easier. That's why no one ever uses those drink powders. It's too hard to clean out afterwards. Make it out of an olive-drab HDPE or Lexan, semi-clear, so you can tell if it's dirty, and the leadership can see who is hydrating.
-I'd actually prefer an issue of one modernized canteen, and one Klean Kanteen-ish bottle that you could cook in, along with a nesting cup and lid. If they would make a Jetboil-sized stove that would accommodate a cup that can nest on a Klean Kanteen, I would buy several.
-Real TP, please. And in its own waterproof pack, along with a handi-wipe. Nothing worse than having to take a dump and finding your TP has been soaked and is now useless. You might use the handi-wipe to wipe your hands, I'm going to use mine to prevent swamp ass.
-Other countries include things like vitamin pills and disposable toothbrushes. I'm kind of on the fence on that. I'd rather use my own vitamins, and my own toothbrush, but a plastic flosser/toothpick in each MRE would be great if I don't have time to unpack my kit.
Oh, and WE SHOULD GO BACK TO TEACHING ACTUAL DAMN FIELDCRAFT, including food preparation and heating techniques. Want to see an uptick in morale while in the field? Force your guys to sit down, use their MRE heaters, and heat their food, instead of just sucking it out of the pouches.
I was discussing military rations recently with a Finnish colleague. He said there were two items in their field rations that no-one had ever been observed to eat, black bread and tinned whitebait. He said even the cats wouldn't touch the sprats.
A shame. When it is done right, I love black bread with real butter and some Gouda.
There must be an end to this intimidation by those who come to this great country, but reject its culture.
JAG2955 wrote:Oh, and WE SHOULD GO BACK TO TEACHING ACTUAL DAMN FIELDCRAFT, including food preparation and heating techniques.
I wonder how much of the lack of field craft is due to the urbanization of the Boy Scout program beginning in the 70's and the lack of cultural acclimatization?
I spent most of my BSA time in the "old school", and had Handbooks and Field books dating back to the 50's. There was a time when I actually was able to show a senior SF NCO (CCN vet) a technique he hadn't heard of before.
Sure made my life in the woods during SERE much more comfortable.
...even before I read MHI, my response to seeing a poster for the stars of the latest Twilight movies was "I see 2 targets and a collaborator".
Giving a guy ham & [strike]lima beans[/strike] motherfuckers was considered a flogging offense, and it necessitated distributing the open case meals label-down, and choosing blind, lest fistfights break out.
LOL! I remember doing that. "Don't look at it, just pick it up."
One thing I do remember about C-rats was that after several days, you'd tend to get clogged up. So, you''d find a can of peaches. Go to a quiet spot, assume the squatting position, and drink the juice out of those preaches. Problem solved.
I was in the Silly Air Patrol in Jr. High and did one of my encampments at Ft. Polk. On one of our fun days, a very pretty lady guided my section out to her UH-1 and took us on a flight around the area. Since all the sections were doing this and lunch was more expedient on the go, MRE's were handed out before flying and en masse. This was in '89. I got Ham and Limas. I also noted, being the swooft guy I am, that the bag also said "NOT FOR FLIGHT OR PREFLIGHT USE."
I was able to trade it in for Meatballs and BBQ sauce.
Worked at a service station with an old retired Army Motor Sgt before I enlisted. He would heat his beanie weenie cans in the shop percolator. Talked about frozen retreat marches in Korea where for days the only chow was to open C-rats on the march and chip out frozen pieces with a bayonet to suck/chew on.
"The Guncounter: More fun than a barrel of tattooed knife-fighting chain-smoking monkey butlers with drinking problems and excessive gambling debts!"
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic;" Justice Story
