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Tabasco and the U.S. military

Tabasco does not openly advertise its history with the U.S. Armed Forces. During the Spanish-American War, John Avery McIlhenny, son of Tabasco's inventor and the second president of McIlhenny Company, served in the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, better known as Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders. His son, Brigadier General Walter Stauffer McIlhenny, USMCR, a World War II veteran and recipient of the Navy Cross, presided over McIlhenny Company from 1949 until his death in 1985. During the Vietnam War, BGen. McIlhenny issued the The Charlie Ration Cookbook. (Charlie ration was slang for the field meal given to troops.) This cookbook came wrapped around a two-ounce bottle of Tabasco sauce in a camouflaged, water-resistant container. It included instructions on how to mix C-rations to make such tasty concoctions as "Combat Canapés" or "Breast of Chicken under Bullets."

The Charlie Ration Cookbook, issued by McIlhenny Company in 1966 for U.S. troops in Vietnam.

It is included in MREs ("Meals Ready to Eat").^[5] During the 1980s, the U.S. military began to include miniature bottles of Tabasco sauce in its MREs. Eventually, miniature bottles of Tabasco sauce were included in two-thirds of all MRE menus. During the same period, McIlhenny Company issued a new military-oriented cookbook using characters from the comic strip Beetle Bailey, titled The Unofficial MRE Cookbook, which it offered free of charge to U.S. Troops. In response to these gestures, service personnel wrote many letters of thanks to McIlhenny Company.

Most recently, U.S. troops in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom used miniature Tabasco bottles to decorate their Christmas trees. Some soldiers used the bottles to make chess sets. Many U.S. troops have returned miniature bottles to McIlhenny Company filled with soil from local camps and bases in Iraq and elsewhere.

McIlhenny Company's relationship with the military extends beyond combat situations. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps list over 400 mess halls that offer Tabasco sauce on their tables. In fact, Tabasco sauce is found on the table of every Officer's Mess in the Marine Corps.

Walter Stauffer McIlhenny was a benefactor of the Marine Military Academy. As a result, a bottle of Tabasco sauce can be found on every table in the school's mess hall. McIlhenny was a member of the Academy's General H. M. Smith Foundation, and the school named one of its buildings after him.

Sometimes we'd get down too late for mid rats and were too tired to get up for breakfast. So we'd get the cook to give us some bread leftover from the day, head back to the barracks, open a couple cans of tuna and make sandwiches, topped with rau muong we'd get from the House Mouse. Sometimes we even had mayo....but not often. Not too bad, actually.

The ground support didn't work to accommodate our schedules so we managed to stock up on stuff from the exchange on our weekly visit and trade with the VNs for condiments and fresh vegetables to get through. The only fresh vegetable was rau muong, Viet Namese spinach or water cress.