He had to wear a mask to open the cheese spread container.
Check out this full review of a Vietnam War MCI or “C Ration”! This is the food US soldiers ate when deployed in the Vietnam War. Simple, much like an MRE but the meals were in cans. They used to have cigarettes in Rations until 1972. This one here turned out to be in pretty bad shape except the cigarettes. Check out this video and see for yourself!
h/t eternal cracker p
I would not eat that.
There was no taste other than bland or bad with C-Rats. Usually bad.
But I was damn happy I had them, even if they were 8 to 10 years old.
It was a rare occasion to have an MRE (lurps), would trade anything for them if you could find who supplied Recon, Rangers or Special Forces.
I’ll always Remember ham and MFrs – (lima beans)
Boy, that takes me back.
When I was in “Indian Country” I got 6 of those a week. USMC policy was (and I greee 100%) regular food only with green smoke. Semi regular with yellow smoke. and Emergency food ; dropped from 15 – 25 yards in the sky, on our red smoke. Went from 185 to 140 in 2 months.
I loved ever “C rat” I got my hands on!
Had I not been shot in the neck; medevaced to Tam Ky field hosp (wound too bad to fix there), and then to the Naval Hosp in Da Nang (where after the operation I weighed myself) I would never have known how much I lost so fast.
PS
Emergency food drops were a weekly event.
6 meals for 7 days.
I was trying to come up with an idea for dinner.
Thanks.
If you go thru some of his videos, he has several that were kept in climate control and are in mint condition. He does eat them and enjoys them. It’s funny to see him enjoy especially bread, crackers, candy and gum – He compares these items to modern day MREs and claims the old recipes were much better. (of course, the ingredient list is way shorter)
Yuck! Having said that sometimes even the Navy grub wasn’t all that great either especially when we ran short on supplies before an UNREP (underway replenishment). And there’s nothing worse than opening the spigot on the milk machine and getting cottage cheese. I don’t envy the Army and the Marines for eating that stuff.
Hit enter too soon. Meant to add that it could’ve been worse – there could have been a can of the dreaded ham and lima beans. Even the Vietnamese didn’t like those, and they would eat pretty much anything. I remember the 4-packs of cigs, too. Since I didn’t smoke, I would give mine to the little gook kids that were always hanging around. They all smoked like chimneys, regardless of age. Probably all dead of lung cancer or emphysema by now.
In the U Mihn Forest (IV corps) with the ARVNs, 3 day operation turned into 12 days. Ran out of C-rations and water.
Hadn’t eaten anything for two or three days except rice that had been soaked in canal water and raw fish. Couldn’t build a fire for two reasons; we couldn’t give our position away and we were in knee to chest deep in water except when we came across a canal berm, abandoned VC hospital, bunkers, cache or a cemetery.
Had two cases of c-rats dropped from an O-1 Bird dog from about a 600 feet. They sailed like kites. Found one case, gave half of it away to the Vietnamese soldier who found it. The cold C Rats didn’t last long, but it had more flavor than rice and fish.
I had a lot of C rats. Some of them weren’t too bad. Never had an MRE.
I was the only one who ate the PORK OR BEEF patty M.R.E.
Your loss suckers. Boil water, and eat with the tobasco sauce. Too bad everyone was too lazy to boil water. Enjoy your cold tuna loaf then.
Geoff. The Navy had the best food. Believe me. I, as an Army recruit, pulled KP on the USS Randall from Norfor4k Virginia to Livorno Italy. Seven days at sea. Best food and desert ever. Only problem was I puked it over the rail. I was sick for 5 of the 7 days. Not funny.
We got C-rats in USAF Basic Training in 1981…We were out at the range
pasting new targets on cardboard…Ours still had
Cigs…Chiclets…Dental stimulator….Marblecake was damn good.
About 20 Years ago ,My good Friend John (Vietnam Class of 67 ) Gave Me
a tin of Peanut Butter for My Birthday, that He had brought back From
the War….Last January I gave it back to Him for His 72nd
Birthday…He’ll probably give it back to Me in 20 Years
3/4 Patriot. We used to heat our pork n’ Beans on the manifold of a Jeep. Water too. Loved the chocolate powder mixed with hot water. Lima beans sucked.
Cheese from the 60’s don’t hold up. HA. Burn them grampa cigs!
Thank you all for your service.
Loved the C rats when I had them- esp the chocolate and fruit cocktail.
Somewhere in my garage, I’ve got a can of date pudding preserved for posterity. Even got a P-38 to open it with.
Anybody want it? I’m sure it’s just fine.
Hated the ham and eggs. Pork and beans in tomato sauce was OK. They had this kind of beef stew that was in looks and smell, indistinguishable from Alpo.
I’ve actually been eating MREs lately. I keep a few cases around and rotate them out every couple years. The one I’m trying to get rid of right now is about 2-3 years from being rancid, even though it has an inspection date of this year. Sometimes these cases aren’t treated well, hot container or rapid temp changes. Even though the case box looks good, I give them 4-5 years tops. I buy them on eBay, I look for the longest inspection date, 2019 should be the highest date you’ll find, but 2020 (the 3 year inspection date) may be found.
OH yeah, the fruit cocktail, with a little cognac? Yum, yum.
My dad joined the Navy a bit before Pearl Harbor. He told me he knew we were going to war somehow soon and he didn’t want to eat cold food in a ditch. He wanted three hot meals a day and a warm place to sleep, and he always got that in the Navy on board the USS Enterprise(CV-6). I asked him didn;t he worry about the torpedoes; he said you just didn’t think about it.
I ate c-rations from the late 60s back in 1983. Then the MRE came out. The Bn CSM and bn CO ( both vietnam vets) used to flip a coin to see who got the pound cake. I was tasked to find the meal that contained it.
Lazlo has one Kidney and could not get in, so I went into Forestry, and spent a lot of time on a hand line fire crew in the early eighties.
They used to give us those on fires, Kick them out of the helicopter in boxes. We would have a contest with the round crackers. You eat the cracker and with no liquids, the first one to be able to whistle gets the John Wayne cookie (that manhole cover of chocolate and rice crispy bits)
Went to Camp Pendleton for Infantry training, every Marine had to, This was late 1965. All the C rats we ate were dates for WWII. Absolutely no taste of any kind.
Here’s a great page on MRE’s from all over the world as well as ones from the 30’s up to today.
http://www.mreinfo.com/
EXTIRPATES
PS
Only Grunts went to ITR. the “smart” guys went elsewhere. Don’t ask me where; I was grunt.
Talked to some 7th Marines (who had nasty words to say for the coward who let the Danis Commie give Faluja back to Taliban!) they had no idea what I meant when I asked ITR?
It just occurred to me that if that guy in the video wants to be truly authentic, he should heat those C-rats over a small chunk of C-4, like we used to do occasionally.
🙂
My father was a carreer army officer, and we were stationed in Germany for 3 years. We loved camping and had an Andre Jamet pop-up we pulled all over Europe. Dad would always get a couple of cases of c-rations and I loved them! Especially the crackers that came with the candy in the can. None better on earth.
To this day I still have a few P-38’s one still in it’s paper wrapper!
One day I bought a can of SPAM at the store and my wife asked if I was having a flashback…I still remember a time when out in the bush a can of SPAM was almost like PRIME RIB!
@Doc: I’ve had a P-38 on my key ring since 1968, right next to my handcuff key. It’s come in handy many times since then. Most people that see it don’t even know what it’s for.
🙂
This will be deja-vu for Preppers in the not-too-distant Apocalyptic future.
Something to look forward to…NOT.
Vietvet, lol. I will let Steve know that he needs to heat one with C-4. It probably will be censored and not monetized by YouTube, so it’ll cost be about 20 bucks but totally worth it.
Submarine life rafts still had smokes in with the C-rats well into the 80’s.
We were still eating those when we were out in the field when I was in the Army back in 1979-82. The Spaghetti was actually one of the better meals. The ham one was awful. My last 2 years I was in Headquarters company so I got to go through the boxes and pick what I liked before they got to the line companies. The one’s we had then didn’t have cigarettes in them.
Tricky D,
That explains why we never got any pound cake, you REMFs snatched them all..still you bring back the 78 soundtrack..
Sometimes, in the USAF, we had to eat steak without lobster. lol