Thread: U.S. Mess Utensils- Knives

Originally Posted by Slamthunderide

Do you collect the forks and spoons too ?

I have not started yet, I have a couple in the kitchen drawer though.

The one knife I would Guess was made in 1952 do you know how old the other might be ?

1962 & older according to military directive/order,,,

Is there a website I can go to to get that info ? The fork from the set with the 1961 knife has DS in a diamond and the spoon has SKOCO stamped on it. The fork and spoon from the other set were both stamped SILCO.

Originally Posted by JDM61

LOL. 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.

Originally Posted by JDM61

We called the canned rations of the 70's C rations, but technically, real C-rats had not been around since 1958.

Uh, I'm not sure. In 67/68 in Vietnam we had c-rations that still contained the 4 cigarette pack in each box. The "Lucky Strikes" were in the, same as WWII, black little box instead of the red & white. The common thought was they were WWII, or Korean generation C-Rations.

And, the ham and Lima beans were less than affectionately known as ham &

Originally Posted by Slamthunderide

Is there a website I can go to to get that info ? The fork from the set with the 1961 knife has DS in a diamond and the spoon has SKOCO stamped on it. The fork and spoon from the other set were both stamped SILCO.

Yes,,, hold while I send a link to a PDF

Here,,,,,,,,,,,

U.S. ARMY CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY - U.S. Army Field Mess Gear

SILCO was a great company,,,, you can still find NOS tableware on Ebay from time to time,,, cheap & great stainless steel for the family setting,,,, better than anything for sale these days, in the same category.

The stopped putting smokes in the MCI's probably around the time of the switch to the all volunteer army. As a lot of us smoked even if we didn't before we joined, we were a bit disappointed. My first exposure to them was in 1978 and the drill sergeants who were pretty much all Vietnam vets, said that they had not come with cigarettes for a few years. Contrary to popular belief, they don't keep rations on the shelf for 30 years. They taste that bad when they are brand new. Any old true C-rations would have been used up probably by the early 60's at the latest. Remember also that we increase the size of the Army post 1965. 1958 was actually the end of a lot of things. Not only did C-rats and K-rats go away but that was also the end of the "brown shoe army." I asked my dad who joined up in 1958 and he said that he was one of the early "back shoe" groups. Like I said before, he got some leftover K-rats when he was in France and, ummmmm, lets just say elsewhere for short but exciting little trip, but my understanding is that even those were gone by say 1960-61 and replaced a short time later by the LRP rats.

Originally Posted by SirStropalot

Uh, I'm not sure. In 67/68 in Vietnam we had c-rations that still contained the 4 cigarette pack in each box. The "Lucky Strikes" were in the, same as WWII, black little box instead of the red & white. The common thought was they were WWII, or Korean generation C-Rations.

And, the ham and Lima beans were less than affectionately known as ham &

Ya I guess technically they were the MCI,s. But they were still marked with the "C" big bold letters on the case. And they were Definantly canned rations, and so also technically your dad didn't have c-rations, he had c-4 or maybe even c-3 ,, so if we're going to get technical lets do right , instead of correcting a common slang term used though the military for many years, what is always been c-rations , and yes some were older than snot, and none of them were good, do you always call a Chevrolet a chevrolet or a Chevy? And 1978, I don't think you would have known what we had in 67-72. Just a thought. Tc

sorry John