I am 65. My uncle and I did a lot of hunting back in the early 1970's. We would buy C rations from an army surplus store for camp use. Our favorite was spaghetti and meat sauce, beans and Frank's, the B2 cans, and canned cakes. Seeing these cans brought back good memories. Used to mix a can of spaghetti with the beans and Frank's in a pot and eat the stuff with the crackers in it. If we had canned cheese, in it would go too. We liked the food. My uncle, however, wouldn't touch the cake. I loved it. I guess we were nuts! Good reviews! Jim P.
old era vet ,the cigs may have went away in 68 but the supply of them was still being distributed 72-75 as were the same old wonderful tasting ham and lima's that every craved for (to put in front of a claymore)
REALLY???? Using civilian can opener to open your C-Rats. Where is your trusty P-38 can opener? I still keep mine on my key chain. Thanks for showing the video.
haha I hear you and admire your courage. I was section chief in a Lance Missile firing team in West Germany in late 70s - mid 80s. Wnen we went on FTX being we were firing team and never in battery area we almost never got hot chow from Battery area and we lived on C-Rats. Not too bad after we used track stove to heat em up.
the c rats I ate: since I didn't smoke, traded cigarettes away. best item was fruit salad in real tinned can. loved the peanut butter which was made from whole peanuts and tasted better than store bought. most of main course items were not wonderful.
This is what we had in the late 70s, without the Cigs. It might not have been a 5-star dinner, but when you were cold and tired it gave you the calories to do your job.
I went into the Army in 1975 when in the field we ate C Rats. Now I never did the mixing thing that you said. In basic we live in WWII barracks that were really old. I use to give the cigs to people for the crackers and some times other items. One time one person put the beans and weenies on the space heater without poking a hold and they blew up beans every where. There is an episode in MASH where this happens and I laugh every time. I have to say when you are hungry they were not bad at all.
Throughout my 18 months served in Vietnam back in the late 60's, while with a combat engineer unit, my lunches in the field when working to clear areas of jungle consisted entirely of issued C Rations, which were mostly un-gourmet type, canned food kits that were never all that good, but they at least provided sufficient calories and nutrition to get you through the rest of the day until a hot meal consisting of real food was to be had in the evening when returning to our Night Defensive Position. On some of those nights, from within my squad tent, myself and a few others would dump a few different main entrees that we saved, into a steel pot helmet, and stir while heating it over a can of Sterno, or a small chunk of C-4 plastic explosive, for a late night snack...while trying to convince ourselves that it was pretty good stuff. Yuk !-Terry T. BrownAuthor, ' Clearing Vietnam '
+Terry T. Brown The steel pot was a versatile cooking tool. Sure as hell can't do that with a kevlar and I don't even want to think about the smell it would put out with a nice C4 burn. Cheers Terry!
While you guys were humping the jungles of Vietnam, I was a pee-wee Boy Scout, but my cousin slipped me C-rats for my frequent camping trips. Made me feel like a real GI at the time, for a kid to get military rations, it was a dream come true. I had no idea what you guys were going through over there, we were still watching the John Wayne movies. I thought they were great, ain't that a bitch? One mans garbage is another man's feast. And the smokes were great, we'd pass around a couple of those mini-packs and act like Vic Morrow from Combat! Thanks for your service and great stories, you guys were the best as far as I'm concerned.
I always find it amusing when I see the rations with "Blue Star Foods, Council Bluffs IA" on them It's my hometown. ConAgra bought the building/land in 1988 but it still stands and I think they produce frozen dinners there now.
Thank you for showing the C-rat in the video and opening it. That must have been terrible to do,but I think we all appreciate it. I have heard that the old c-rats came with cigs,but never saw them. It was very educational and enjoyable.
We always had a bunch of C Rations my dad would buy for emergency supplies back in the 60's. Whenever they'd approach the end of shelf life we'd bust into them and split up the treasures: parents got the smokes, kids got the chicklets, we'd split up the crackers, and then the cans of food would get opened and ate, if safe, while my dad talked about his days as a 1st Sgt in the USAAC/USAF in the early 1950's. Heck, I slept in an army footlocker for the first 2 years of life. Loved C Ration day... :)
In '78 we were eating C-rats from '63. The '63 rations had the applesauce in them. Newer rations had peaches, fruit cocktail and apricots from tri-valley growers, San Francisco. You could only eat half the can of Applesauce since the bottom half of the can was rusted already. You had Chocolate Nut Roll, Orange Nut Roll, Fruit Cake and Pound Cake from Eunice King's Kitchen in Sherman, Texas as desserts. The chocolate bars with imitation butterscotch crunches were called "John Wayne" bars and would never melt. We used to steal a bunch of mayo and sweet relish packets from the burger bar to mix with the tuna for tunafish sandwiches and you would heat the cheese with the eggs for an omelet or with the boned chicken for chicken fromage. One of the questions on promotion boards was "How many holes are there in a C-ration Cracker?" I think the answer was 48..... You could use thermite and still not heat up the potatoes in the beef and potatoes in gravy, the ham and MF's were terrible, but my favorite was the beef in spiced sauce. In the 1979 rations the grape jelly was bad so we had to throw that away when we got it and there was a glob of white powder in the middle of each main meal. We didn't know what it was and we didn't eat it. The white plastic spoon was just the right size to dig out the powder glob and fling it at your buddy. Good times!
Don't knock it if you ain't tried it. I ate my share of them and, though lacking in flavor, they never failed to keep me going, which is the point, I think. "Time Changes Everything" is more than a good song. It's the truth. We even got "alerts" back in '71 to not use the cocoa powder drink mix, and sometimes other chocolate offerings. I wouldn't recommend eating any of that crap, some forty five years hence. Jus' sayin'. ----------- You're one of my heroes, TT Brown. Happy Memorial Day. You are not forgotten.
I remember in Vietnam in 1968 we started getting some of the meals that had caned fruit. ie peaches, pears, fruit cocktail. Every one tried to get a C that had fruit in it. That was the best part of the meal out in the bush.
Loved me some c rats... especially spiced need, beef and potatoes...the cheese was good with the white bread...Pall Mall or Looks were the best cigs...I ate them nearly everyday from Jan 1965 to Dec 1966...
We had C Rats in our basement in Alaska in the mid-60s. Back then we would have the Nuc drills(hide under the wooden desk) at school. I ate C's at Ft Dix in the early 80s.
A part of me is crying, the box, the cans, the cigarettes, all in excellent condition... and something is telling me that most of it was thrown away... I found your channel through Steve's, but dang, those were all in excellent display condition.
Well, it was filmed 4 years ago before people went all crazy for the old stuff. Back then you could pick these up for 5 or 10 bucks cause no one wanted them. If only one could turn back time eh?
Few know this: The cardboard box's were torn apart and used as fuel to heat the meal. The cardboard is designed to burn slowly. It did not work that well.
1-A's were ham and fruit cocktail. The best in the case! In late 66 and early 67 our C's were coming with 4 A's, 4 B's and 4 C's, All Packed by Mayfair Cannery in San Jose , Ca with pack dates of 1966. The only one I recall as being horrible were the Ham and Lima beans. I smoked,my buddy didn't so I had a total of 6 packs of cigarettes. They Tended to be all dried out but what the heck. Trying to get one lit was the problem in the rain. We use to cut apart Claymores for the fuel to heat them!
Wm. Van Ness Really lucky soldiers got their hands on the P-51s- a larger version of the P-38. Both models were strung on the dog tag chain and it could do second duty as a poor boy screw driver too!
I was with the 2nd Armored Division on Reforger 75 for six months in Germany in 1975. We ate a lot of these rations while in the field. All the ones I ever had during that time had the little packs of cigarettes in them. We would barter with them with German civilians. good memories.
Lots of memories but... I can't ever remember once using (or even getting) a plastic utensil. We had a mess kit we always carried. The smokes were mostly Marlboro, Winston, Kools or Salem but occasionally, Lucky Strike, Chesterfields or Camels. One last note is the P-38... those were worth their weight in gold. I always carried two and traded one off when I needed something from someone else, lol. Nice vid, thanks!
ammo pouches full of marbs a catton in my ruc a bottle of jim in my elec panal of my m-577 one time a fng put a can of beans on a htr in our gp large with no vent hiss and pop beans all over top had beans on his face man was he pissed the pvt was cleaning m16s for a week and top made him clean the gp large wile everone else went to the ville drinkin
I remember these fondly as my dad would sometimes bring home components of his rations, along with DDT bug repellant and tons of green backed matchbooks for me to play with (it was the 70's don't judge lol). He also traded his rations with friendly Vietnamese for dolls and other toys for me. I remember a beef in gravy, a turkey or chicken stew, ham with beans or peas, canned white bread, cheese spread (which I remember really liking), chocolate and hard candy in a can and a fruitcake or some kind of nut cake with raisins. It was fun going through his gear when he was home on leave to get whatever he had leftover to play with. Of course at 6 or 7 it never dawned on me that the poor SOB had to live off of that stuff (it was a downgrade from Alpo). Then he was severely wounded by a booby trap/ambush a few weeks before his 4th and final tour was supposed to be over. These definitely remind me of better times as his life and sanity unraveled after being wounded. MREs are like 5 star dining compared to these.
You obviously never ate the first generation of MRE's, we were begging them to give us the C-Rations (actually these MCI's) back, those first generation MRE's were horrible.
First time seeing this one! It is awesome! My father smoked unfiltered Pall Malls. Guess he picked that up from the navy lol thank you so much for this one even if I am behind the times!
In my 3 years in SouthEast Asia, many times all I had to eat were C-rats. I do remember that the canned pound cake was really great. The spaghetti and chunks was found to be a Chef Boyardee subcontract. The peanut butter and jams were always good. It was 'food from home', as i am sure any G.I., of any nation in the field, would cling to, as a reminder tickler of 'mom, home, apple pie, etc.'.
+SFsc616171 3 years, wow! I have only heard of one other person that did more time. My second 1st Sergeant was a 173rd turned LRRP...did 4 years. That man had no sense of humor! but was a great leader. Cheers!
I don't remember the contents listed on the boxes. Also the ones we got had a pack of 5 cig's, gum and a small piece of toilet paper. Were these WW2 rations? In any case most were better than what came from the mess hall kitchen. This was in training, didn't go to Vietnam.
Spaghetti and a chocolate nut roll! That's fine dining. That unit was in really good shape too. Someone stored it carefully for a long time but time still won.
I went into the U.S. Army in 1981. While going thru basic we were given C rats on our Bivouacs and Marches. They weren't that bad. The only really one I couldn't stand was eating Green eggs and Ham. That one was bad......
The creamer was flammable and could be used to start fires with wet wood. When burning your C-rat trash you had to watch out for peanut butter claymores..... unopened peanut butter cans exploding in the fire... LOL!
loganinkosovo The 'trick' was to use the P-38 to cut periodic slits into any of the cans and then place these in the Jeep engine compartment and have these warm up by the heat of the engine. The steam would be released through the slits made in the cans.
I think that can you picked up actually said "Council Bluffs, Iowa" which by the way they have a haunted angel in the cemetery there...(heard this on The Art Bell Radio show about ghosts and haunted cemeteries and other places that are haunted supposedly)! Thank you for serving...my hubby is an Air Force Vet.
Im a funeral director here. The story is this man bought a granite stone angel for his wife's grave. Its larger than life size. He ordered white. They did it in black granite. So the stories were .started how the angel changed colors at night. Its a forklore. To tell the girl friend to cuddle. Its our history. Thanks for bringing this to light.
I had a MRE that was a Spaghetti Dinner, which was good, but very salty. I remember it had crackers, gum, a chocolate bar that was more like baker's chocolate, and peanut butter (that when you tried to get it out of the package it had the consistency of sludge found in your cars oil pan, and rather hard to get out of the package. The drink powder was rather tart. Found it quite filling, but the gum was like pieces of plaster. The C Ration you showed I would have believed was lousy in Vietnam, as the temperature and monsoonal climate would have made that food rather lousy. Also in an era of filtered cigarettes, even those would be stale also in that monsoonal climate (which happened often during WW2 with the wax packaging, and noticing the lack of waxed cardboard I would find the Vietnam one to be likewise). Also the lack of a P38 can opener (I don't believe soldiers carried the crank model shown) must have put a few soldiers in the sickbay..
The beanie weenies weren't too bad. Spaghetti ohs were good too. Ate a lot of them in the Navy when we were at battle stations 24/7 and the mess deck was shut down. WE had coffee pots everywhere and you could throw the can in the coffee before opening it to heat it up. Didn't make Navy coffee taste any worse.
Showed this video to my Dad. He says that he remembered the C-rats and the menu you had was his least favorite, he didn't serve in Vietnam but he was in when they still being used. He also thought it was pretty foolish to have opened the cans.
Beef in spice sauce was the best... if you ate it during the day when you could see what you were eating, I got some with BIG wads of thick hairy skin, and another time i got a big wad of heart valve . but it was still the best
i remembered eating my dad's rations (he was in british army); always tasty, always made me full quickly. buiscuits were thick and hard but atsted so good.. couldnt find them in shops
Great vid. That cheese looked pretty awful! You should do a video on the "HungerBuster" 24 hour ration pack. I think its the civilian version of the Australian Defense Force CR1M. Might be a nice comparative to, say the X-MRE 24 hour.
Considering it was 40 years old I imagine it was warm quite a bit. I've more a bit more adventurous in tasting things recently but I don't plan dying for a mre review HAHA/ Cheers!
Did soldiers in the pre-easy to open rat-pack days get issued with a tin opener as part of their kit? & did they use those small sterno stoves like UK soldiers?
+Essem Sweeney There were small can openers (P38's) added with each case. Eventually you just kept one and always had one on you. The soldiers used to make stoves, among other thngs, from used and clean C-rat cans and used C-4 as the cooking fuel. It burns real hot and real well and it was very plentiful. Cheers
We had a lot of guys not very happy with the switch to MREs. I mean I joined in 87, 4 years after the last MCI and guys were still bitching about it HAHA
Yeah, he's great like that. I personally like to stay "behind the camera" for privacy reasons and seeing as i quit smoking years and years ago you'd just hear me coughing and wheezing lol. Cheers Patrick
only the B2 units had the cakes. the B1 and B3 had Fruit as I recall. I ate a lot of them, oddly the ham and eggs were my favorites. and the cigs went away in 1968.
A few questions. If you were to try and eat one of these, how dangerous would that be? How likely would it be to get food poisoning? Also, when these were carried by soldiers, do you know if they usually ditched the box and only took the can? Did the break them down in any way?
albmartinez314 I don't know how dangerous it would be. I always go with the sniff test. If it smells off it's off. Every soldier since the dawn of time and portable rations "field stipped" their rations. Less bulk in your pack and why carry something you aren't going to eat? Ounces = Pounds, Pounds = Pain. Cheers
