From: Robert Morecook
Dated: January 15, 2020
Subject: Vintage MRE Review Taste Testing - YouTube
I would trade for ham and lima beans Loved them then -- and now too! mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!
Bob M
From: Steve Pennington
Dated: January 15, 2020
Subject: WWII C RATS
The trick of heating your C rats on the manifold was a rite of initiation for our unit. Whenever we got a newbie we would pull the trick on him, and he, in turn, was given the chance to pull it on the next new guy.
Steve
From: Frank Rogers
Dated: July 2, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
Sidelight:
Thanks Dickie for the memory jog on MREs.
Could the C in rations and the C symbol for the Navy’s Steward’s Mate rating (now defunct) have been seen as connection to the Moslem religion and another reason for the elimination of C?
FrankR
PS: re the Military base name changes from Confederate Generals.. Grant Park in Atlanta is not named for general U.S. Grant but for a Southerner. Also, were not the current base sites in the South originally to house occupation Yankee troops during the laughingly-called “Reconstruction”?
From: Dick Ellis
Dated: July 2, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
I pulled KP once at the KySon Hotel and that day the sergeant gave me a can of those shrimp and said soak them all day for dinner that night. I read directions on can and went to it. They soaked all day but still looked like little pencil erasers.....we would chew them until we got all the shrimp flavor then spit them out! My jaws have never been the same.... Happy 4th everyone.......I landed in Vietnam 4-July-1967....they were shelling the end of the runway....so we all yelled....”Happy 4th of July VC!”
Dickie
From: Steve Sevits
Dated: January 14, 2020
Subject: WWII C RATS
On Okinawa, in the early 60s I remember eating WW II c-rats - as I recall the corned beef was great but don't recall what else went with it. I could have lived on the corned beef c-rats. For some reason we had cases of the stuff.
Steve
From: Dick Ellis
Dated: June 30, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
We ate a bunch of C-rats in Saigon....especially during Tet!
From: Mike Jackson
Dated: January 15, 2020
Subject: WWII C RATS
Yes, and I kept dodging my men driving duce-and-halves.
From: Tim Bodle
Dated: July 2, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
At KLIK during the TET Offensive I hardly ever left the station.
Lived on C-Rats (most of the time) and the meals that were brought to my by charitable units. The 701st guys delivered my dinner with a fork lift now and then.
if you look carefully you'll see a few cases of Cs just to the right below the Akai tape deck.
YUMMMMM
From: John Bagwell
Dated: January 15, 2020
Subject: 1966 Vietnam Meal Combat Individual MCI Fried Ham Vintage MRE Review Taste Testing - YouTube
Oh, ham and lima beans was the worst. I do remember after not eating for a couple of days that the apricots were great!
From: Stan Pratt
Dated: January 15, 2020
Subject: 1966 Vietnam Meal Combat Individual MCI Fried Ham Vintage MRE Review Taste Testing - YouTube
No wonder I could not remember what was with the ham chunks. I cannot eat lima beans beans now fifty years later.
Stan
C-Rations and Vietnam Meal, Combat
January & July 2020
From: Roy Burnett
Dated: July 2, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
Nice reminder. My arrival in DaNang was July 3,1970 but our welcome did not include weapons fire. Which was fine with me.
RB
From: Ken Kalish
Dated: July 2, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
Dickie, you and I hit the tarmac on the same day!
Ken
From: Mike Jackson
Dated: January 15, 2020
Subject: WWII C RATS
I recall a soldier once telling me the story of a young recruit out on an FTX who wanted to warm his corned beef up before consuming the ration. So, he put the can on the manifold of his jeep (without piercing it with a P38) and the inevitable explosion occurred, blowing corned beef all over the engine. The jeep smelled like corned beef for over a year.
MikeJ
From: Frank Rogers
Dated: July 2, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
Great photo. Hope Marc has it in his book.
FrankR
From: Tim Bodle
Dated: July 2, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
While working at the MARS station in Lai Khe we also lived on C-Rats. Sometimes washed down with whatever beer we could get our hands on at the time. A 60mm mortar blew a hole in the roof while I was on duty. Quite loud when only 15 to 20 feet from the impact. I had the tail fin for a while but since lost it during my many moves.
From: Bobbie Keith
Dated: July 1, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
What about those K rations -- worked next door to a BEQ that had a restaurant we were allowed to use -- and was able to obtain a large can of dehydrated shrimp - that we soaked in beer -- absolutely delicious - large - and succulent.
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From: Bobbie Keith
Dated: July 1, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
Until I opened the attachment, I envisioned - literally - sea rats - what a surprise - I have a box of MRIs in my garage - for hurricane back up - best wishes to all for a safe and Happy Fourth of July.
Rolling thunder will be rolling in a Fourth of July parade on Merritt island, Florida - they never stop displaying their patriotism to all.
From: Frank Rogers
Dated: July 1, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
Some of the best food I had in Basic training were left over C rations (WW2 & Korea ?) Loved the huge round chocolate . Does anyone have info on contents of today’s C rations, it they are still called that.? I believe cigarettes have been removed; don't know if matches, too.
Frank
From: Dick Ellis
Dated: July 1, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
Frankie... The new C-rats were introduced in 1981 and are called MRE’s. Meals Ready To Eat. They contain a chemical in the plastic packaging so when you pour water in it heats up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat I had the privilege of working at the Pentagon at the time for the Assistant Secretary of Defense who was in charge of logistics so all that came under us and I set up a big meeting with lots of big wigs to come to our conference room and sample them for the first time before they were officially released to the troops in the field. Hell of a four star “luncheon” if I recall! I am kind of like you brother....I didn’t mind the c-rats that much....and we had some during TET that we’re from the Korean War.
Dickie
From: Dick Ellis
Dated: July 2, 2020
Subject: C-Rats
I landed at Long Binh and was bused to a replacement center. Crudest place I have ever seen...even worse than our Boy Scout camp. Stayed there and was sent by bus each morning through Saigon to some sort of admin center in Cholon. Big green bus...screen wire on the windows.....we had our noses pressed against them like kids watching for Santa. If I recall, Saigon at that time had about 1-million more people than it was designed for. This went on for about three days...finally, someone came from the broadcast center in an old gray Navy truck, took me back, met everyone and was taken to the KySon. Next thing I knew it was September, 1968 and General Tam came to #9 and took me to the airport in his big black car! What a time....
From: Rick Fredericksen
Dated: January 14, 2020
Subject: 1966 Vietnam Meal Combat Individual MCI Fried Ham Vintage MRE Review Taste Testing - YouTube
Enjoyed watching. Almost, but not quite, made me want a C-rats lunch. A likable guy to serve as guinea pig. I seem to remember the worst draw was scrambled eggs.
Rick Fredericksen
AFVN Group Conversations
From: Chuck Adams
Dated: January 15, 2020
Subject: WWII C RATS
Didn’t your start out in Transportation Corps, R. Michael…?
Chuck Adams
From: Jim Anderson
Dated: January 15, 2020
Subject: Vintage MRE Review Taste Testing - YouTube
Turkey loaf, one of the better choices. Assuming you got a choice.
From: Jim Anderson
Dated: January 14, 2020
Subject: 1966 Vietnam Meal Combat Individual MCI Fried Ham Vintage MRE Review Taste Testing - YouTube
1966 Vietnam Meal Combat Individual MCI Fried Ham Vintage MRE Review Taste Testing - YouTube
From: Robert Morecook
Dated: January 15, 2020
Subject: Vintage MRE Review Taste Testing - YouTube
Chocolate disks? I ate those in boy scouts -- because I was in a Fort Ben Harrison troop. Hated them! They were hard to break up with one's teeth!
Bob M
From: Stan Pratt
Dated: January 15, 2020
Subject: 1966 Vietnam Meal Combat Individual MCI Fried Ham Vintage MRE Review Taste Testing - YouTube
As I remember something with ham chunks was one of the worst.
Stan
From: Steve Pennington
Dated: January 14, 2020
Subject: 1966 Vietnam Meal Combat Individual MCI Fried Ham Vintage MRE Review Taste Testing - YouTube
We would take the can of bread, that smelled like vitamin pills, cut it in half, open a can of the green scrambled eggs, melt the cheese from the B-2 unit and make an Egg McMuffin out of it. The cheese had to be hot enough to burn your mouth.
Steve
From: Frank Rogers
Dated: January 14, 2020
Subject: 1966 Vietnam Meal Combat Individual MCI Fried Ham Vintage MRE Review Taste Testing - YouTube
My all time favorite circa 1955 was the huge, thick, all chocolate disk.
FrankR