You didn't really have to canabalize any claymores. Just beg a block of C4 off a engineeer unit. A little slice worked great. (just don't shock it, while it's burning)

In 1980, I ate C-rations while assisting the Marine Corps Island Defense Force in Keflavic, Iceland. I am interested in finding the match strike blue stone that was used to heat the meals. Is it even made any longer? There are a few items on Amazon that heat via chemical reactions for a few minutes. The C-rations blue stone lasted quite a while as I recall.

Please send info to: [email protected] Thanks.

Pound cake. Peaches. Turkey. Round chocolate discs (we called them John Wayne bars).

I was in during the C-rat to MRE transition. Still can't decide which was better overall. Each has its winners and losers. Liked the MRE beans in tomato sauce.

Ham and eggs. I could never get past that it looked like someone had vomited in the can.

Now pound cake. That was great and may have actually weighed a pound.

Never ate any C rations, but have eaten a fair amount of the canned aircrew rations.
They are apparently very similiar, some items may be exactly the same.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Yes, I remember C Rations, I ate plenty of them. In some ways they were better than MRE's, and in some ways they were worse. And now that I have muddled that up, I bid you adieu.

HA! I ate them while in Field Artillery and POL. I got so that I went to the PX before any field trips, and stocked up on groceries. The Army taught me to appreciate hot Coke/Pepsi, because I was so hot and thirsty, and the canteen water wasn't gettin' done anymore.

The best & worst--I can't even remember which--but they could really get old!

PS: I have yet to meet a civilian that knows what I am talking about, when I mention chugging a hot Coke. They think that I am nuts.

I agree, lima bean and ham worst ever. 1 inch of grease on top, yuk.

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Semper Fi until I die

How can you forget Cs, as stated most guys hated the Lima bean
& Ham. Was my favorite. One time I got a Lima so big I had to
pry it out with knife. The little packs of smokes that burnt like
fuse they were so old, WW2 left overs. We use to save the round
John Wayne chocolate bars. We threw them off to Montyard kids
that would run behind track begging. After a while they started
throwing them back. The pound cake with a fruit unit poured over
it was a favorite. Come to think of it even our 40mm ammo was
WW2 Navy Issue, even though we were Army.

Still have my P-38 somewhere. There was a reason they turned the boxes over when issuing C rations from the case. Some things went lots quicker than others. Usually hungry so just choke it down if it was one of the greasier, less desirable meals.

Liked the "LRP" rations, we got some "Vietnamse" LRP rations ( or that's what was claimed) that were spicier and really good, especially for this South Texas boy raised on the standard tex-mex border/farm/ranch menu.

rayb

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"cumplo pero no obedezco"

Only thing I can think of would be Trioxane, it came in a green foil wrap about the size of a thin domino. I think Amazon sells it.

When we had hot meals the cooks (???) would dump mixed C-Rations in trash cans that had a heater in them.
The cans were spread at the mil spec 10 yard interval, the drill was to take your mess kit and go from one trash can to the next, at each can you fished one can of rations out with tongs (I think), then on to the next.
The cans were hot, as I remember you had to wait for them to cool or some would squirt hot grease in your face.
Since the cooks (???) paid no attention to what they put into the trash cans you had the (bad) luck of the draw. This stuff was all WWII so ten years or so old.
There were boxes of the dry stuff at the end of the line.

You could try to trade and that worked a bit, some guys wanted boot money to trade though.

Not one of my fonder memories.

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Ipsis Rebus Dictantitbus

Spiced beef was the worst.
Swimming in grease.

I enjoyed the C rations, there wasn't a can that I didn't eat. Our detachment was on non-availability of rations so we had to buy our rations. what we ordered from Saigon and what was sent to us was two different things. there was never any fresh meat, lots of canned chopped ham product, beef in gravy, canned chicken and turkey, and a favorite was pasta in tomato sauce. C -ration made up must of the food we ate. I like the pecan roll; I would put it in the coffee pot in the morning when the coffee was brewed the pecan roll was warm. someone had a issued mess kit and it was used to cook some concoctions, Ham patties with peaches is one I remember. We used empty can as mini stoves, poke some holes put a 1 inch piece of C-4 lite it and heat your c rats. the morning and lunch meals were c-rats a and supper was something canned heated on the gasoline stove that no one wanted to light.

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Carpriver.

For me, the worst deal was when they decided we had time for a "hot" meal. Every body got handed a box of C-rats, and had to take out their meat can and drop it in a garbage can filled with water sitting on a field stove. When the water warmed up the stuff inside the cans, you filed by the garbage can and were served whatever can was picked up by the "cook". Any time I got something I liked pretty well but dropped it in the can, I seemed to get a can of Ham and Lima Beans back in it's place. Never seemed to fail. Guess that's one of the reasons why I hated the H&L Beans, with the other reason being they tasted like SHTUUUFFFF! But since I didn't like going hungry, I usually ate whatever I was dealt. I do remember that it was a good idea to drink plenty of water with those meals or else they seemed to get kind of impacted before they passed through your system.

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So long ... Ken

I was in the Navy. Always hot coffee and a warm meal.

Why would anyone want to eat cold food and get shot at in the same day?

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That's just somebody talkin.

Spaghetti & meatballs and beef stew were pretty good. Eggs with ham, chopped. Water added were the worst. When I was on convoy escort, our vehicle was authorized a case every run. Put the case near the engine so they'd be warm. C's were a lot more tolerable when warmed up. Pound cake with a can of fruit cocktail dumped over it wasn't half bad either. For the record, I never saw a single can of ham & lima beans the whole time I was in-country.

Boned chicken and Turkey Loaf were my favorites. Ham slices and Ham and Limas were the worst.

Had surplus K-rats as a kid-for hunting...lived off 15 condemed cases of C's in college. On active duty, Eating spaghetti one night-found a big piece of skin or a vein-yick
While on an emergency deployment exercise I had a Reserve Officer with us-we started a small fire to heat rations- BOOM we thought the OPFOR was attacking-until I saw, by firelight-a big blotch of jam on the Reserve guys butt-he'd put a can of jam in the fire-and it wounded him-
I loved C's, MRE's, LRP's-kind of miss them now....

Anyone remember "Ranger Cookies"?

Take the crackers and grind them up into a fine flour. Add a sugar packet and a creamer pack. Mix them all together in one of the big foil/paper envelopes. Like the one the beverage powder came in. Add maybe a teaspoon of water. Stir. Makes a doughy paste. Fold up the envelope real tight. Burn it up in the C-rat box, or throw it on a fire for a few minutes.....

Ta, da!

Ranger Cookies!

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~ S&W aficionado in training ~

If you liked tuna, (which I did) you were in luck, because the chicken or ham tasted like tuna too.

The best was the peaches, poured over that dry as the desert sand pound cake.

If you were short of one or the other of the ingredients you could always trade the cigarettes that came with them.

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NULLI SECUNDUS

That would be the Beef w/Spiced sauce. My FAVORITE!

Not a big fan of the green eggs. We called it baby poop.

If you ran out of ammo you could always throw the crackers at 'em.

Am I the only guy that loved the cheese spread and crackers? And I swear I recall in the early '60's getting C rats that had a loaf of bread baked into the can so it was a perfect can-size "loaf" of damned good bread! Did I hallucinate that? I'll never forget the can of spaghetti that I had in February during a snow storm during amphibious warfare school in Little Creek VA... cold and the grease stuck to the roof of your mouth and coated your teeth!

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Old paratrooper in NC

Some of us are men and the rest join the Navy.
My dad was WWII Navy, and my oldest brother was Navy 1962-1964.
I served 1977-1984, ham and eggs sucked, most of the rest was ok some was like chicken or turkey was good.
I had to eat MRE's once in the early part of 1982, everything was dry and you had to add water to choke it down. Nobody in my unit liked them we all wanted c- rats.

In my total of 30 months in that lovely Southeastern Asian paradise, I ate a lot of Cs. And, I confess, I liked them. I didn't care if most of them were unheated (never really cold) or not. The single thing in the C-Rat case I hated was the Eggs and Ham. Awful, heated or unheated-Awful!

The Spiced Beef was probably my next least favorite, but I loved the rest of the stuff.

Since I am confessing, I actually bought a case of Cs, early 80s vintage if I recall, just before 1999 turned into 2000 since the world was gonna end or something like that. They were just as good.

I liked the cigs in the package when I was in the Army, since I smoked then (hadn't yet discovered how much nicer a chew or dip was yet). I quit smoking not long after getting out of the Army (1968), so I wasn't disappointed when the new case of C-Rats I bought in '99 had no cigs.

I would still try them, if I could find them today at a reasonable price. I've since tried some MREs, but did not think they were as good. YMMV!

Oh, and I don't chew or dip anymore, either. Or drink alcohol or chase women. And, amazingly, my life is still filled with joy and fun.

Bob

I'm your Huckleberry then! Wanna swap?

If we were "back there," I sure would trade. Ham and uhhh, oh yeah, Lima Beans were great.

Bob

I called the ham and eggs "fart in a can". Better than eating a bug (well, maybe not, depends on the bug)

Well the crackers and peanut butter was pretty good. I ate what I ever I drew though as didn't want to go hungry. I had a little Swedish backpacking stove I kept in my deployment bag that I fired with JP-4 we had for our tent heaters. It warmed up my C-rats pretty fast and my buddies lined up for their turn as our fuel tab stoves didn't work so hot.
I did see a can of Dinty More beef stew auction off for ten bucks a guy had as we all were sick of C-rats. Lot of money when we made $300/month.

while not exactly 'c rations' during the Cuban crisis my ship was at sea so long, we were reduced to eating canned hamburger that was dated 1938. I was mess cooking at the time and I distinctly remember being sent to get the box out of a very remote storage locker. I read the label and couldn`t believe my eyes. I did not partake of that meal instead I ate plain saltines for supper, and was glad to find that!

I was in Italy during 69-70 and the wife and I would dig out the turkey loaf, heat it up over a kerosene space heater and make a sandwich out of it. It was not bad. Candy bars for dessert and throw the rest out.

Charlie

Pound cake was good and the very rare sliced pears. Ham and lima beans were not fit to eat, and I like lima beans.

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Can my S&W Mdl 10 shoot +P

I remember them and that some were less disgusting than others, but the best part was always the 5 pack of cigarettes in them. Back then I still smoked, and cigarettes were always more important than food. LOL I expect the current rations don't have cigarettes in them.