Thread: U.S. Mess Utensils- Knives

Originally Posted by Hirlau

I had a few of those leftovers in 79,, I actually preferred them over the MRE's that first came out,,,, I loved that "pound cake" you guys had,,,

Yeah, pound cake was a biggie, but the real lottery was when you had the pound cake and found someone who'd trade their peaches for something else.

Pound cake & Peaches!!!

. Yep that was about the only two things that were worth anything ,, if you had an extra pound cake you were in business ,, oh and if you had real milk you could pour that on the cake , mmmmuuummmm. Now as for everything else , I,m not missing any of it 44 years later and I'll wait another 44 to eat any of it again. Now as to the knifes ,, I dulled. My Randall on the john wayne paper. Tc

Its not off topic as long as you can use the mess utensils to eat it with,,,

We called the canned rations of the 70's C rations, but technically, real C-rats had not been around since 1958. What we had with the MCI or Meal, Combat, Individual in milspeak. My dad went into the Army in 1958 so he saw the last of the real C rations AND the K rations which were meal specific (breakfast, lunch and dinner versions) and lighter to carry, but had fewer calories per package so you got 3 a day instead of 2. K's were originally intended for airborne troops, tanker and such for short term use where weight and size were an issue. I think that they were replaced by the Army on a MUCH smaller scale by the LRP rations which were the ancestor of the MRE, had even fewer calories than the MRE or LCI, but were supposedly better, assuming you could find a clean water supply to rehydrate them as they were all freeze dried. As for the MRE's, it wouldn't have taken much for anything to be better than those first ones.

Originally Posted by Hirlau

I had a few of those leftovers in 79,, I actually preferred them over the MRE's that first came out,,,, I loved that "pound cake" you guys had,,,

LOL. Peaches were the one thing that tasted okay even with a bit of rust in them. The ham and lima beans entree was gone by the time that I was in, so the one you never wanted to see was the ham and eggs brick. We have lousy field rations. Most of our allies have much better rations and you get a day or sometimes two days worth of food in one pack. I remember rumors from the First Gulf War about American troops in Saudi Arabia trading our very desirable folding camps cots to the Brits in exchange for cases of their field rations. I don't know if we got any of their "shampoo and mouthwash" which were airline sized bottles refilled with prohibited liquor. More recently, when the French Foreign Legion went into Mali to fight the Islamist, they took a TON of their field rations, stripped out the ones that contained pork and gave them to the locals. Not only did this result in a brisk trade in food items like duck cassoulet and curries, but apparently the high quality instant coffee (oxymoron?) contained in those ratios became the cup o' joe of choice in parts of Northern Mali

Originally Posted by SirStropalot

Yeah, pound cake was a biggie, but the real lottery was when you had the pound cake and found someone who'd trade their peaches for something else.

Pound cake & Peaches!!!

"" Never have good tasting field rations survived pilferage while in storage or shipment. Therefore all should be nourishing and bland.""
Comment in a novel.
~Richard

Are you saying there was a peach snatcher somewhere down the line ?

Here is one that was stamped and has US on 1 side and UCCO on the other it either came sharp or someone sharpened it The other one I have also has U.S. on the one side and O.L.1952 ont the other and it has not been sharpened

Do you collect the forks and spoons too ?

UCCO equals ,,, the United Cutlery Company

O.L. 1952 equals,,,,,,,,,Oneida Ltd.