Watching "Combat" with Vic Morrow, "Sgt Saunders" on ABC as a grade-school kid with no idea what the military was like but hanging on every frame of video being televised, I'd watch the platoon eat "K" rations during breaks in the battle somewhere in the war (I think it was France).
By the time I was in the Air Force in the middle Seventies, we were up to (down at?) "C" rations, many of which may have been older than we were, and despite what the other services always said about zoomies, we didn't have field exercises catered so that's what was for dinner. (Loved the can opener, usually called a church key)
We had cartons of them in the engineering spaces at the AFRTS station while stationed in Sondrestrom, Greenland, in the event a blizzard or arctic weather condition forced us to shelter in place for days at a time, so we wouldn't starve.
I never ate them then either, but figured I could feed them to one of the arctic foxes or ravens that haunted and skulked us and when they died from eating them I would eat them. We called that 'seven level thinking' in the Air Force.
Times have changed from back in the day and Meals Ready to Eat (and there are a LOT of other suggestions for what those three letters stand for floating around) have been how American fighting men and women have eaten for decades.
Why this condensed culinary combat history? Because it's been announced the next chapter has just been written and don't get me started on the chocolate hazelnut protein smoothie. What can a hungry boy (or girl) say except "to beef goulash and beyond."
-bill kenny
No comments:
Post a Comment