C-Rats you know yer hard when ya Like 'em . . . Love 'em . . . Live 'em . . . nuthin' better in the bush than a C Rat party with Lao Khao rice whiskey white lightning to wash 'em down . . . oh yeah those were the good old days . . . ten million times better than the dreaded MREs . . . "Meals Ready to Excrete" . . . the Gurkhas called them "Meals Rejected by Ethiopians" . . .
STORMBRINGER SENDS
MREs were bad because they never filled you up.
ReplyDeleteC-rats would, and you could even apply some culinary creativity beyond tabasco sauce to make something entirely different.
But no one who ever experienced "Ham and M*****f*****s", cold, for breakfast, for the third day in a row, would ever look upon C-rats as anything to write home about.
Not even Ethiopians.
Loved them.
ReplyDeleteEspecially Beef, Peas w/Gravy
I used to trade parts of my C-Rats for other kids' lunches in 2nd and 3rd grade.
ReplyDeleteNo...I'm not a Marine.
My brother was. He sent me 3 cases from Vietnam....
There were times, in Korea, that I wanted to find the bastards that invented C-rats, and beat them to death with a tire iron.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there were also times I thought they should have been nominated for sainthood.
But whoever thought that putting un-filtered Kool cigarettes in there was a good idea????
Meal Combat Individual; Pound cake ,fruit cocktail , pecan nut roll, coconut macaroons, and the very rare "steak in the can" and double strength coffee . Hated that dry assed tuna. The ham & Motherf**kers were nasty. I could eat the John Wayne crackers crushed up in the gravy ,but I needed a lot of coffee to eat 'em with the peanut butter & jam ---Ray
ReplyDeleteI ate so many C's that I think my stomach and intestines are permanently lined with C-rat grease(preservative?). At times I loved 'em. The LRRP rations were just damned good but hard to get.
ReplyDeleteCertainly a "Love/Hate" relationship.
ReplyDeleteLove - Turkey Loaf, Pound Cake and Peaches. Canned fruit is far better than freeze dried; 'cept when you gotta hump it
Hate - most of the other "meat" units and that crappy pimento cheese.
The early MRE's (dark brown) were REALLY bad - whoever decided "Beef with Spiced Sauce" was edible should be made to susbsist on it for the rest of their miserable existence
A sensory memory from my misspent youth; rain dripping off my helmet into the greasy cold spaghetti and meat balls I was eating for "breakfast"
Boat Guy - Once A Marine
In about 1973 we got a few cases marked 1948. The cigarettes were so dry they went poof when lighted. All were unfiltered. An hour later the corpsmen came around and said not to eat the Cs if the cans were bulging. Loved the peaches; hated the ham and mother******s. Always had a bottle of Tabasco.
ReplyDeleteI had the dubious "honor" of being the first civilian to eat an MRE.
ReplyDeleteDad was serving at Defense Logistics Agency and brought home a dark brown plastic bag. No printing on bag, instructions were on a type written page.
Dad asked "You ate C-rations when you were in ROTC, didn't you?"
Not an auspicious beginning to a conversation. Well, I had the MRE for lunch and told Dad it was worse than C-rats because:
It needed an external source of water.
C-rat packaging could be used to heat up the contents.
MREs made foraging for roots, berries, and carrion a viable alternative.
Pretty much what the reports back from the field tests said. DoD still went ahead with MREs 'cause the bean counters said they would.
We'll discuss the destruction of faulty MREs that came from a "preferred" contractor some other time.
With the C's I would always wonder about the meat. Chicken or Turkey. Couldn't they tell what kind of bird it was they were cooking. Also as the Lt. I always picked up my rations last. I would always get scrambled eggs. In three meals - two would be eggs. I could never proved that the Plt, Guide was screwing me, but in my heart I knew it was true.
ReplyDeleteChris
A. Nony Mous beat my record. Got a case of C-rats in the field in W Germany in Fall '82 that had been packed in 1959. No warnings from the medics for us. Hell, we were grunts and we were hungry so we ate.
ReplyDeleteThe New Zealand equivalent in the seventies was ok apart from the tinned 'meat'. Most found the biscuits wooden, but I liked them with cheese or butter . While the Irish stew was quite good, the Lamb and peas were unspeakably vile. I once opened a can and left it out for a stray cat near our camp. Three days later, this pink mound stood untouched by any form of animal or insect life...
ReplyDeleteBeef w/ Spiced sauce was the best...pound cake and fruit cocktail was heaven.
ReplyDeletefirefirefire
Back in the day, way back, we were issued 'K'rats.
ReplyDeleteI still have the shits fifty years later.
Love the comments. It's a trip down memory lane.
ReplyDeleteLaz Long
"...some of the veterans just left 'em layin in the trail
ReplyDeletefor the Viet Cong to find.
Deadlier than a landmine."
From Tom Paxton's "Talking Vietnam Blues"
I liked C-rats. Most of the ones we got were from the early 60's, in 73-74. I got a like for the green eggs and ham and the pound cake. The fun part after chow was the swapping of smokes to try and either get your brand or something you could stand to smoke. Unfiltered Kool's were ore than nasty. I liked the Chesterfields.
ReplyDeleteOMG~!!!!! into your huge blog for almost the last hour.|I think the admin of this website is really working a lot.|Thanks for posting this up on your blog.|I am surprised at how slow your article loaded on my lap top.|Thank you for writing these great website.|The shorter response is that I don't know very much about the subject, a longer answer is that I'm going to understand what I'm able to Thanks for this post. I found it to be very encouraging. I really learned a lot because of you.
ReplyDeleteVisit my site :: 부산오피
(jk)