Grandpa’s War – Part 6 – Eats

A quick word about how we ate.

There’s a variety of ways to get food in the field. One is MREs. What does MRE stand for? In actual military lingo, it stands for Meals Ready to Eat. In the lingo of the folks who eat the stuff, it stands for Meals Rejected by Ethiopia.

Take your choice on meanings.

The come in a box of about a dozen meals and in my time, brown plastic bags. They featured delicacies like BBQ Beef Patty, Chicken a La King, Spaghetti, and the like. All come with an entree, crackers, a spread (peanut butter, cheese spread, or jelly), and some kind of dessert.

Below is a spread sheet showing the meals we might have gotten. There were still a lot of MRE 1-7s in the warehouse and we got those on occasion.

A note about the Pork and Beef patties listed on the sheet. These were dehydrated and the idea was you put some water in it and it would soften up. Truth be told, you could drop one in the Pacific Ocean, it could soak it all up, and it would still be hard as a rock. They might be useful for combating the rising sea levels due to global warming!

A few that were amazing. The Ham Slice was incredible and so was the Tuna and Noodles. Toss some Tabasco sauce in the chicken a ls King and that was awesome. And of course, you can’t ruin Spaghetti.

Traditionally, this is how the troops eat. Someone opens a box of MREs. Everyone gets in line starting from the lowest ranking the highest. The lowest ranking EM takes one, then the next, and so on. Once the Privates and Specialists get their meals, then the NCOs take one, followed by the officers. Sorry, searching through the box is discouraged. You grab and move on and whatever you get, you eat. If you don’t like it, then trade with someone.

One of the things I remember well is the tribal wisdom handed down concerning MREs. Some it was assembled into what’s known as the “MRE Cookbook.” As the name implies, it’s a method of taking the inedible and turning them into something yummy.

A few I remember are:

• Peach Cobbler – Take your canteen cup and put your dehydrated peaches into the cup. Crush one cracker from your MRE into it. Add the coffee creamer, sugar, and enough water to re-hydrate the mess. Stir and enjoy.
• Ranger Cookie – Take your brownie or cake from the MRE Packet and top with peanut butter. Enjoy.
• Cafe Mocha – This one is easy. Make yourself a canteen cup of instant coffee and pour you hot chocolate from your MRE into it. Add sugar and cream. Now if you had some cinnamon candy, dissolve a little into it. WOW!

Some of the recipes have been compiled and are online in book form. I had a cookbook that was about a dozen pages thick and it looked more like a comic book. The cook in this case was Sad Sack from the cartoons. I wish I’d known where it went. I did find a PDF of it online and if you click MRE Unofficial Recipe Booklet, you can enjoy.

One thing I reference in book 4- Event Horizon is how Will and Jonesy heat their MRE in the mountains. They take the main course out of its cardboard container. They open the foil pack a little. Then they poke holes with a knife into the box. The food pouch is placed back inside and then they light the box on fire. The box burns quickly, and you have a hot meal. This is very welcome when you’re standing a traffic control post in the middle of the freezing cold. Thank you, Greg Bradley, for passing on this tribal wisdom back in the snowy cold of Germany.

Today, MREs come with their own heater.

Of course, he (or she) who had Tabasco Sauce was and still is king.

Then there’s T-rations. These come in a large can that in a lot of ways resembles a cake pan. The idea is you toss them into boiling water, get them hot, and then open them. There’s usually beef or chicken, rice or mashed potatoes, and maybe a cake. You need a can opener to open it up.

I never saw T-Rats with 1st Armored, though I saw them often at 1st Infantry.

A third way is you get your meal is to have it delivered to you from a mess tent someplace. In this, several aluminum pots are filled up. These are then placed into a larger container filled with hot water. It’s delivered to you, and you eat.

It was this last way our Christmas meal was delivered to us.

There is a fourth way, but it often times meant eating at a restaurant someplace. We ate at an actual restaurant once, and it was awesome. I order kabobs on rice. Some of the troops ordered a hamburger. And they found our idea of a hamburger and the Saudi idea of a hamburger are two different things.

You’ll also find street vendors. Many serve Gyros and those are awesome.

Of course, after living on MREs, a happy meal would have tasted like something turned out by a world-class chef. And trust me. It wasn’t long before most of us would have happily killed for a happy meal.

Water was a very precious commodity. I’d found I was drinking on average 8 to 10 I liter bottles of water a day. Most everyone else was doing the same.

That consumption went up when we were working hard. Heat exhaustion was drilled into us everyday. And we all made sure everyone was drinking water. The biggest issue was the water was hot. Ice was a distant memory, but water is hard to drink warm.

Pre-sweetened Kool-Aid was our Best friend.

The cooks made sure we had boxes of it and I’m thankful to them for that.

Previous – Christmas at Thompson Next – Checkpoint Bravo

All photographs Copyright – Richard L. Muniz