BUMP
In God We Trust…..Semper Fi
Posted on 03/14/2003 8:40:15 AM PST by TADSLOS
Soldier: 'You Can Get Rid Of the Mint Brownie, Sir'
CAMP WOLF, Kuwait -- This may seem a strange place to conduct consumer research, but the man with the notebook couldn't have it any better.
"OK, you don't like the Thai chicken," food technologist Michael Acheson says, scribbling the comments of Spc. Joe Diggins, one of a dozen Army infantrymen, snipers and scouts gathered around him in a semicircle.
Mr. Acheson normally works outside Boston at the Army's Combat Feeding Directorate in Natick, Mass., where Meals Ready-to-Eat are developed and tested. Meals Ready-to-Eat, or MREs, are the military's infamously long-lasting foodstuffs encased in rubbery, brown plastic bags that look like large bricks and are strong enough, according to government standards, to survive being parachuted in from airplanes flying at 2,000 feet, or simply dropped from a helicopter without a parachute at 100 feet.
Mr. Acheson tastes so many MRE entrees he must continually spit them out so he doesn't get fat, much as wine tasters do to avoid getting drunk.
But nothing beats feedback from grunts on the ground, for whom MREs have long been the subject of jokes, twisted appreciation and, in the case of certain entrees, avoidance. Soldiers eat them while training, while fighting, while waiting for war. The more they sit, they more they talk about MREs.
At Camp Wolf, a holding station near the Kuwait City airport, Mr. Acheson meets waves of U.S. troops passing through, Spc. Diggins among them. Mr. Acheson assures him that Thai chicken improvements are on the way. Two ingredients -- bamboo shoots and water chestnuts -- have returned. "They're here to stay," Mr. Acheson says. "You've got to have that crunch in there."
Officially, Mr. Acheson, 53 years old, is a civilian volunteer who, among other duties, helps process military contractors who tag along with highly mechanized military units. A culinary-trained Army veteran who once cooked for a general, he wears desert-camouflage clothing, sports a bushy mustache and a floppy tan hat, and carries a gas mask on his hip. "Every spare moment I have, I talk about food," he says.
One of his targets: Spc. Diggins's bunch, a unit of the Army's 101st Airborne division, whose responses come flying at him.
"Those pound cakes, those are awesome. Keep them all, the plain vanilla, the orange, the pineapple, the lemon-poppy seed, the spice," says Spc. Justin Morrow.
"You can get rid of the mint brownie, sir," adds Pvt. Fernando Gutierrez.
"Everyone tries to pawn that one off, sir," agrees Sgt. First Class Dan Cunningham.
Mr. Acheson e-mails the useful tidbits back to headquarters in Massachusetts.
There are 24 main entree choices in MREs, such as beef teriyaki or cheese tortellini. Besides the main meal, each MRE contains a handful of smaller bags containing side dishes (lots of rice), desserts (M&Ms, Tootsie Rolls, Skittles) and extras (Tabasco sauce, chewing gum, wet wipes, instant coffee, olive-green matches). The MREs are labeled with the entree they offer, so soldiers can pick what they want. Each entree has a different set of sides and desserts. Some items can be heated by inserting them into a plastic bag, packed in the meal, with a chemical strip inside that bubbles up a hot poaching solution after soldiers add water.
MREs came into use about 20 years ago to replace the fabled military "C-rations," which came in little cans. The Army requires MREs to have a shelf life of three years at 80 degrees, or to keep for six months at 100 degrees, and to meet the Surgeon General's nutritional guidelines. The Army says it pays $6.77 per meal.
Some military camps are large enough to have mess tents, so soldiers eat MREs only part of the time. One MRE brick can weigh about 1½ pounds, so some soldiers will "field-strip" them -- that is, break them down to remove the condiments and packaging material they don't need -- to make them lighter to carry.
As with most aspects of the military, MREs are the stuff of legend. A widely shared notion: They're deliberately made to make those who eat them constipated, sparing soldiers one worry in the field.
"Absolutely not," Mr. Acheson says. Constipation is probably just a reaction to switching diets, he says.
What is clear is that MREs also are a ready source of entertainment. One game, dubbed the MRE Challenge, calls on contestants to remove all the smaller bags from the main bag, tear them open, pour the contents back into the outer bag and mix. Sprinkle in some match tips, Tabasco sauce and tissue paper for added zest. Add a little water. Stir. Then try to consume in less than 15 minutes.
"People get bored," says Spc. Joe Claussen. "I threw up about 12 or 14 minutes into it."
To break the monotony, soldiers trade MREs among themselves, and with troops of other countries. "In Somalia, the Belgians had the best MREs I ever saw," Spc. Claussen says. "They had goose pate. You had to trade four of our MREs for one of theirs."
After Operation Desert Storm, the Army says it figured out that soldiers would eat more if they were able to pick preferred meals, and, therefore, has been replacing unpopular items. Soldiers do say MREs are better than they used to be, save for a Beef with Mushrooms entree. "First bad one I had in a while," says Spc. Claussen. "No redeeming qualities whatsoever."
Mr. Acheson says the Army plans to cut Beef with Mushrooms from its 2003 offerings, along with Jamaican Pork Chop and Pasta with Alfredo Sauce. Soldiers are sometimes too tired, too hungry, too hot, too wet or moving too quickly to stop. So they eat a lot of MREs unheated. On that test, the Alfredo fails. Indeed, a cold Alfredo is the only MRE Mr. Acheson says he doesn't like.
Coming this year are Hearty Clam Chowder, Pot Roast with Vegetables and a Poppy Seed Pound Cake. "We're working on a salmon," he tells the soldiers.
"Yeech," says Lt. Eddie Commender.
"No, I tried it. It's good," Mr. Acheson says.
The soldiers offer far more positives than negatives, so Mr. Acheson presses: "I'm interested in what you don't like, too."
"The vegetable cracker is the worst thing they ever did to an MRE," Lt. Commender says.
"Mmm ... I've heard that a couple of other times today," Mr. Acheson says, making a note.
-- Sarah Ellison in New York contributed to this article.
Oh, man ... does that bring back memories. I still tell that story to all of the young troops, although, for me, it wasn't the cheese spread. It was the old "Lifer Bar". I would trade just about everything in my first day's rations for as many lifer bars as I could get so that I would be well and truly stopped up for the length of the field problem (up to a week). The next to last day, I would trade anything I had for a supply of John Wayne bars, and would spend my time during the APC road convoy back eating them one after another. Timed properly, they would hit me just about the time that we arrived back at the motor pool.
Ah, yes ... those were good days. Cigarettes in the C's and I didn't smoke. Those were like gold during field problems.
Cans of pork slices with juices, beef slices with gravy, tuna, pork and beans ... the MRE's were uniformly better tasting than most of the C's, but eating out of a packet never really seemed to be as satisfying as eating out of a can.
I distinctly remember that that was one of the things that they NEVER let us do. When they opened the box containing the C-ration boxes, they always did it upside down so that you couldn't see what you were getting and it was one big lottery in the selection and another bartering session before eating ("Hey, I'll trade you my pork slices with juices for your Pork and Beans".)
Stay Safe !
Did your squad ever try "squad gumbo"? That's where you'd take the main entree C-ration from each man in the squad and empty it into one helmet while you boiled rice in someone else's helmet?
Ham and Lima Beans, Pork slices with juice, Pork and Beans, Beef Slices with Gravy, and tuna over rice makes for interesting culinary experience.
Stay Safe !
Stay Safe !
Nope ... 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile and then Armored (mech infantry) Charlie, 2/12 Cav (The Blue Lancers) ... carried the M-60 for two years until I made Sergeant.
2nd Infantry, three tours to Camp Casey, Korea ...
21st Support Command, Mannheim ...
2nd Armored Division, Hell-on-Wheels, before they were de-activated ...
The rest of my time with the 3d (Imperial) Corps .. the Phantom Corps.
Attached to 3rd Armored Cav (Brave Rifles) for DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM ... as a REMF, but I was still there.
Never .. ever .. forget the bottle of tabasco. It added that certain .. (oh, how shall I put it) ... mystique to messkit-fried armadillo.
I had some blue Jell-O at a meeting a week ago that five of us couldn't decide what flavor it was suppossed to be.
BUMP
In God We Trust…..Semper Fi
Woo! Sounds liki somthing something that has aready been eaten once before.
Wonder what the MRE equivalent to good old Ham and mf would be?
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