This is a different ration - a B2 unit, in this case, "Spaghetti with beef chunks, in sauce."
The biggest difference from the B1 unit a couple of days ago is this one has "Chocolate Nut Roll" as a dessert, vice the fruit in the B1 unit. This unit also has crackers and cheese vice crackers and a candy bar. This being a 1970 ration, the accessory pack has cigarettes, in this case, Benson and Hedges... plus sugar (now carmelized), creamer, coffee, salt, Chiclets, toilet paper (that little packet by the bowl of the spoon) and it *should* have had an "interdental stimulator" but this packet had a tiny hole in it (which is why I chose to open this one) and apparently the "interdental stimulator (aka, toothpick) escaped at some point in the last 40 years. Or just got overlooked in packing. Those tootpicks were needful. Those beef chunks weren't cut from the prime part of the beast...
The Castle Technical is kitted out as a scout jeep of the US Army Berlin Command (50's-60's before they were renamed the Berlin Brigade). Those of you who have served know that we soldiers always carried food around with us. Since the era of the jeep covers two different ration schemes, I've got two different ration boxes, both reproductions. This is the C-ration case, which covers late 50's through the 60's (and beyond, to the mid-80's, in fact). I left in the display case with the SMGs to give you sense of scale.
This is the inside of the C-ration case, one of (IIRC) three different menu sets. The plan was that you ate a different type ration - B1, B2, B3, and that doing so both hit nutritional requirements (lotsa calories in these things) as well as helping you stay, urm, more regular. In practice, we all had our favorites, and be damned to the rest. Some units would go to the extreme of pulling out all the meats (when you were in laager, vice out on the march) and toss 'em into 55 gal cans full of heated water, and you pulled randomly from the can, or got handed one by a KP. The, uh, tension, yeah, that's the word, tension, when people would argue over the food could get pretty ugly.
If I'm going to do an impression of the 50's era, the changes are simple. The PRC-25 radio comes out, to be replaced with the PRC-10, and the C-ration case comes out to be replaced by a 8-in-1 Combat Ration- the C-rat of WWII and Korea.
Last, but certainly not least, long-time reader Rick-in-KCK sent links to two post he did at the Freeper Foxhole:
One on the Charlie Ration cookbook.
And one on the MRE cookbook.
Military folk take their chow seriously! Thanks, Rich!
The biggest difference from the B1 unit a couple of days ago is this one has "Chocolate Nut Roll" as a dessert, vice the fruit in the B1 unit. This unit also has crackers and cheese vice crackers and a candy bar. This being a 1970 ration, the accessory pack has cigarettes, in this case, Benson and Hedges... plus sugar (now carmelized), creamer, coffee, salt, Chiclets, toilet paper (that little packet by the bowl of the spoon) and it *should* have had an "interdental stimulator" but this packet had a tiny hole in it (which is why I chose to open this one) and apparently the "interdental stimulator (aka, toothpick) escaped at some point in the last 40 years. Or just got overlooked in packing. Those tootpicks were needful. Those beef chunks weren't cut from the prime part of the beast...The Castle Technical is kitted out as a scout jeep of the US Army Berlin Command (50's-60's before they were renamed the Berlin Brigade). Those of you who have served know that we soldiers always carried food around with us. Since the era of the jeep covers two different ration schemes, I've got two different ration boxes, both reproductions. This is the C-ration case, which covers late 50's through the 60's (and beyond, to the mid-80's, in fact). I left in the display case with the SMGs to give you sense of scale.
This is the inside of the C-ration case, one of (IIRC) three different menu sets. The plan was that you ate a different type ration - B1, B2, B3, and that doing so both hit nutritional requirements (lotsa calories in these things) as well as helping you stay, urm, more regular. In practice, we all had our favorites, and be damned to the rest. Some units would go to the extreme of pulling out all the meats (when you were in laager, vice out on the march) and toss 'em into 55 gal cans full of heated water, and you pulled randomly from the can, or got handed one by a KP. The, uh, tension, yeah, that's the word, tension, when people would argue over the food could get pretty ugly.
If I'm going to do an impression of the 50's era, the changes are simple. The PRC-25 radio comes out, to be replaced with the PRC-10, and the C-ration case comes out to be replaced by a 8-in-1 Combat Ration- the C-rat of WWII and Korea.
Last, but certainly not least, long-time reader Rick-in-KCK sent links to two post he did at the Freeper Foxhole:
One on the Charlie Ration cookbook.
And one on the MRE cookbook.
Military folk take their chow seriously! Thanks, Rich!
Damn, I just sounded like one of those spams.
Still, I love seeing/reading about this stuff.
What I learned from C-rations during my all-expense-paid tour of sunny southeast Asia:
1) In spite of all the folks in Natick, Mass. best efforts, a C-ration box fit in each cargo pocket of jungle fatigues.
2) Peanut butter and jelly can be mixed together prior to application on crackers.
3) Enough McIlhenny's hot sauce will get you through even the Ham & Limas.
4) A P-45 can opener can make a useful heat them suckers up stove.
5) Excessive application of heat will work well when you're out of McIlhenny's. Scorched taste buds transmit a lot less information.
6) C-4 is your most valuable cooking tool and is readily available from distracted Combat Engineers. C-4 bags are kind of neat, too.
7) An unpinned hand grenade fits nicely in the large C-rations can if you're trouble by those who prefer to not earn their daily bread.
ia600404.us.archive.org/15/items/manualforarmycoo00unit/manualforarmycoo00unit_bw.pdf
Take the blueberry desert and open it. Shred the desiccated bread. Insert the pieces into the desert sleeve. Add two coffee whiteners and one packet of sugar. Mix. Put desert sleeve into a heating pouch, add water. Wait till hot. Enjoy with instant coffee. Get back to the war.
countrystore.tabasco.com/MRE-Cookbook/productinfo/04845/
Cheers
Rather than eat what the Albanian employees prepared under KBR supervision, I subsisted on the crackers and peanut butter in MREs. Alas, the MREs we got were from the USAF, so the Tabasco sauce had turned green by the time they got to us...so we mooched from the Army--yeah, yeah, I know they weren't C-rats, but still...
Frankly, what I ate in the field as an ALO wasn't THAT bad. Again, I stayed away from the Army mess, after seeing who was REALLY doing the "cooking" for Task Force HAWK. That would be people we had to train to use toilet seats. They'd squat, vice sit, and miss, and that got SO old. But I digress... After getting poisoned by the French in a NATO exercise (lost 17 pounds in two weeks and completely eliminated any chance of colon cancer for the next 60 years), I'll be god***ned if I'll eat ANYTHING prepared in the field. MREs, C-Rats, whatever...good old 'Murican technoswill is way good enough for me.
Будьте все вы можете быть.
www.youtube.com/watch
SovietRussian uniforms and insignia.www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/1105/russian-marines-russia-demotivational-posters-1306578869.png
I kind of like the little head bob the guy is doing with each pull of the trigger at about the 15 second mark.