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The U.S. Army Institute of Environmental Medicine is looking for volunteers (PDF) to eat military food rations for 21 consecutive days for a study of the impact of Meals, Ready-to-Eat, or MREs, on gut health. Researchers want to learn how MREs influence the millions of bacteria in troops' digestive systems. "Interactions between the millions of bacteria living in our gut and what we eat is a very important factor in gut health, but we don't know how MRE foods interact with those bacteria to impact gut health," Holly McClung, a research dietitian working on the project, said on the Army's...

March 30, 2014, 03:53 pm US ships 300,000 MREs to Ukraine military By Justin Sink Getty Images The United States delivered 300,000 meals-ready-to-eat to the Ukranian military, the first delivery of American aid to the former Soviet republic following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The supplies were transported from a military distribution depot in German to the city of Krakovets, on the border between Ukraine and Poland. The meals and associated transportation costs totaled approximately $3 million from the Pentagon budget. “The Office of Defense Cooperation, U.S. Embassy Kyiv, the Defense Logistics Agency and the U.S. European Command provided a whole...

Deadly Attack by Taliban Leaves2 Troops and 10 Schoolchildren Dead CBS/AP June 3, 2013 A suicide bomber targeting an American military delegation outside a government office in eastern Afghanistan killed 12 people on Monday, including nine schoolchildren who were walking nearby and two international service members, officials said. The attack comes as the Taliban and other militants step up bombings and raids on police posts nationwide in a major test of the ability of Afghan soldiers and police to hold their ground without international military forces, who are withdrawing ....the bomber on a motorcycle detonated his explosives in Samkani...

Marines at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan will lose a key daily meal starting Saturday, causing some to forgo a hot breakfast and others to work six-plus hours without refueling on cooked food, according to Marines at the base and Marine Corps officials.

Marines at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan will lose a key daily meal starting Saturday, causing some to forgo a hot breakfast and others to work six-plus hours without refueling on cooked food, according to Marines at the base and Marine Corps officials. The midnight ration service — known there as “midrats" — supplies breakfast to Marines on midnight-to-noon shifts and dinner to Marines who are ending noon-to-midnight work periods. It's described as one of the few times the Marines at Leatherneck can be together in one place.

When someone says “survival food preps” or “stockpiling survival food“, what do you think of? Do you think of tons of dried rice and beans stored in mylar bags? How about a basement full of #10 cans, does that come to mind? Or is it a combination of several things? When I was thinking of writing an article about survival food preps, the first thing that popped into my head was – MREs, canned goods and garden seeds. But where does perishable goods fit into that narrow picture? For the first week or so people are going to be eating...

BATON ROUGE -- Nearly five months after Hurricane Gustav, the public relations battle between Gov. Bobby Jindal and FEMA continues over who was to blame for the exasperating depletion of emergency food and water supplies soon after the storm. At stake is a clear understanding of how to prepare for disasters. FEMA's argument, contained in a retort to comments made by Jindal last week, is that basically the responsibility for the problem lies with the storm victims of Louisiana, who gobbled up food and water at an "extraordinary" rate after Gustav swept through. The federal agency said it worked closely...

The Freeper Canteen Presents ~Meals Ready To Eat~ The MRE was adopted as the Department of Defense combat ration in 1975. A large-scale production test began in 1978 with delivery in 1981. MRE I (1981) was the first date of pack. *Recipe* MRE Recipe Ingredients: 1 MRE (Meal, Ready-to-Eat) Directions: Open and consume. Heating optional. Discard appropriately During Operation Desert Storm, MREs were eaten by troops for far longer than they were originally intended. Originally intended for 10 days or less, many troops ate them for 60+ days. As a result, three changes were quickly made to supplement the...

Resale of Meals, Ready to Eat questioned after eBay trading spottedBy Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Saturday, February 18, 2006 WASHINGTON — Meals, Ready to Eat, the prepackaged rations infamous among servicemembers, remain hot collectibles on the online trading site eBay.com, despite defense officials’ efforts to stop the practice. MREs typically cost about $4.50 to produce, and are intended solely for use and distribution by members of the military, according to Defense Department rules. But the water-activated rations are being marketed on the site as both survival gear and collector’s item, with some cases of 12 going...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

U.S. MARINE CORPS FORCES, PACIFIC, CAMP H. M. SMITH, Hawaii (01-03-2006) -- If you are tired of trying to make Meal-Ready-to-Eat menus more palatable, then your search may be over. The field rations have progressed a long way from the C-rats of the past, and they continue to change even to this day. Four of the current 24 MREs have been removed and are being replaced by new and improved menus, according to the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center, located in Natick, Mass. Usually the ASSC only replaces two MREs a year, but this year they wanted to give the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Uncle Sam has tried to feed millions of hurricane victims this year with Meals-Ready-to-Eat, or MREs, only to fear that some of them have become Meals-Ready-for-eBay. The government is looking into whether eBay sellers in Gulf Coast states are trying to profit from military foodstuffs handed out for free following hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Representatives for eBay, the online auctioneer company, say it is impossible to prove that any of the meals were meant for hurricane victims. They note that MREs can be bought in camping stores and Army-Navy surplus outlets. But at least some of...

McALLEN, Texas (AP) -- A Texas employment agency was sentenced to five years of probation for hiring illegal immigrants to work at the nation's top producer of military battlefield rations, federal prosecutors said Thursday. The Tollin Group was also fined $20,000 and ordered to pay $414,000 in civil penalties Wednesday. It has been barred from Department of Defense contracts for three years. The San Antonio-based company, which does business as Remedy Intelligent Staffing, pleaded guilty in January to hiring illegal immigrants and trying to cover it up by falsifying employment eligibility forms. The workers were hired for Wornick Co., which...

An employment agency pleaded guilty to falsifying forms to get illegal immigrants jobs at the nation's top producer of U.S. military battlefield rations.James Echensberger, vice president of San Antonio-based Tollin Group Inc., on Tuesday pleaded guilty on the company's behalf to one count of conspiracy to provide false and fictitious statements during an FBI investigation.Investigators found that Tollin, which does business as Remedy Intelligent Staffing, was trying to cover up hundreds of fraudulent "I-9" employment eligibility documents. The illegal workers were hired by Wornick Co., which packages high-calorie "meals ready to eat" for troops in Iraq.The FBI initiated the investigation...

<p>And looked across the table where the bills were piled too high.</p> <p>My stocks were down another point, the Dolphins lost by six.</p> <p>I gave up on the drudgery and grabbed a wooden stool.</p> <p>And so I flipped the TV on to catch a little break.</p>

BROWNSVILLE -- Federal authorities have taken 41 suspected illegal immigrants into custody after they were found working at a Department of Defense contractor at the Port of Brownsville. Luisa Aquino, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said today that the Wednesday raid came after an investigation found AMFELS Inc.'s subcontractors were hiring undocumented workers. She said AMFELS was not part of the investigation and had alerted federal officials to false Social Security numbers. U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby was expected to provide more details of the investigation Thursday afternoon in McAllen. "These companies were hiring undocumented aliens and providing...

U.S. officials are probing the possibility the al-Qaida terrorist network sought to infiltrate a Texas company in order to contaminate ready-to-eat meals designated for the military. A high-ranking al-Qaida operative provided information leading authorities to nearly a dozen illegal immigrants working for the McAllen, Texas-based Wornick Co., the largest supplier of the meals, according to McAllen's The Monitor newspaper. The firm that places the workers at Wornick has been charged with conspiring to make and use false employment eligibility verification forms. U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby explained, "Immediately after the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban in 2002, U.S. forces on...

McALLEN — The vice president of a temporary employment agency pleaded not guilty this afternoon to charges of falsifying work documents and lying to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force during an investigation into a potential al-Qaida plot here. James Eckensberger Jr., vice president of the San Antonio-Based Tollin Group, offered no comment after entering his plea in federal court. Just moments earlier, U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby held a news conference shedding some light on the investigation that began as a search for al-Qaida operatives but ultimately netted 10 undocumented workers without terror links. The Tollin Group operates in McAllen...

--"Ration stripping," they call it when forward- deployed combat troops jettison all but the most essential items from their Meals, Ready to Eat so they don't have so much to carry as they set out on a mission. Troops in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan reported sacrificing all but a few carefully chosen food items from their MRE pouches to lighten their pockets and rucksacks. These reports alarmed food technologists at the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center at Natick, Mass, who recognized that warfighters weren't simply tossing aside "luxury" items like flameless heaters and Tabasco sauce. Janice Rosado from the Defense...