Meals Ready-To-Eat Get Tweak To Add Some Flavor To Army

Wall Street Journal | March 14, 2003 | By Dan Morse, Staff Reporter Of The Wall Street Journal

[L,TOWM]

MRE Ping.

[apeman81]

I can't say I liked MREs, but I remember, and praise, the day they put that lovely little bottle of tabasco in the bag. Now that was an inspired moment!
Before that, you always had to find the one guy in the bunch that was smart or crazy enough to carry a bottle of the nectar in his kit.
They were filling, varied, and much better than the compacted cereal bars that they used to put in the bail-out kit.
I guess I'll have to look for the new flavors at the commissary and make the kids give them a try.

[BlueLancer]

"Also when in the field one could manage their bodily functions by the C-rat method. Cheese Spread was a STOP signal to the body and the Old John Wayne Chocolate Bar was a GO signal......timing was everything .....:o)"

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.

[BlueLancer]

"The MREs are labeled with the entree they offer, so soldiers can pick what they want."

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".)

[Squantos]

LOL......Thanks for yer Service BL ! Were you part of 1st Armor in Germany ?

Stay Safe !

[Poohbah]

The MRE etiquette was simple in the 1980s:

Reach into box without looking

Grab the first MRE you touched

Barter at leisure

[BlueLancer]

"... we still had the steel helmet ..."

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.

[Squantos]

Yeah ...But ya forgot the pint bottle of tabasco !

Stay Safe !

[Squantos]

Yeah ...But ya forgot the pint bottle of tabasco !

Stay Safe !

[BlueLancer]

"Were you part of 1st Armor in Germany?"

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.

[BlueLancer]

"Yeah ...But ya forgot the pint bottle of tabasco !"

Never .. ever .. forget the bottle of tabasco. It added that certain .. (oh, how shall I put it) ... mystique to messkit-fried armadillo.

[harpseal]

Just so long as I never in my life see cream chipped beef on toast again.

[razorback-bert]

SOS, runny green Jell-O and bug juice, a meal to be missed.

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.

[North Coast Conservative]

SOS? Love it!!!!

BUMP

In God We Trust…..Semper Fi

[oyez]

The worst I had was the pre-digested crap called "B-Rations."

Woo! Sounds liki somthing something that has aready been eaten once before.

[oyez]

Ham and Lima Beans,

Wonder what the MRE equivalent to good old Ham and mf would be?

[JoeSixPack1]

The last field ready meal I ever ate contained a package of Marlboros! Does that mean I am OLD???

The tasteless giant wafer was the best thing about C-rats, oh, the toilet paper was a welcome site too. :-)

[JoeSixPack1]

site=sight (don't shoot me, spelling cops...)

[razorback-bert]

Your only old, if your can remember getting ciggys and minatures free of charge on airplane flights.

[JoeSixPack1]

Well, I guess it's official. :-(