Do you remember "C" rations? If so, what was the worst and best?

Gator I hate to tell you but you are wrong. The first generation of MRE's were mostly dehydrated.

Pork and beef patties that required water. I've also seen potato patties that required the same.

All of them were horrible and we screamed for A rations or give us back our old "C"'s.
 
Originally posted by BruceHMX:
Gator I hate to tell you but you are wrong. The first generation of MRE's were mostly dehydrated.

Sir, not so. The first-generation MREs (which I ate a lot of) did have various dehydrated items, but the pork and beef patties were the only dehydrated main courses. The "styrofoam fruit things" and potato cake were dehydrated, as were various things in the accessory pack, but most main courses were fully hydrated: Beef, Ground, w/Spiced Sauce; Chicken a la King; Beef Stew; Ham and Chicken Loaf; Ham Slices; Tuna, etc. I forget now what the others were (there were 12 total), but they weren't dehydrated.

Hope this helps, and Semper Fi.

Ron H.
 
I remember re-deploying to Ft. Campbell from Somalia in December 1985 and in my ruck when i emptied it out my wife found the dehdrated strawberies from the MRE.

She thought oh wow strawberries, she added water and took one spoonful and thre them out.

the chicklets and chuckles in the C rats were pretty good when I got them. I remember most of the time we never ate them heated.

I only had LRRPS a few times and I recall the chili con carni was hot. even dehydrated.
 
My favorite was ham & eggs. Most people didn't like them, so I could most always swap for some.

Actualy none of the C-rats were bad, if you could heat them. Some could be kinda rough cold. (i.e. ham & lima beans, Spagetti & meat balls)

Generaly speaking however MRE's are better.
 
Does anyone know of anyplace to buy c rats? Used to be able to get then in surplus stores but not any more. I am not demented, I just want some for old times sake. Thanks
 
I agree with RonH. About '83 or '84 they were switching over. I've had to suffer both but MRE's sucked! I was stationed in OK at Ft.Sill at that time,I think sometimes they were trying to use the C's up but I could be wrong, they came up with some crazy reasons to serve us that stuf.
 
Originally posted by BruceHMX:
Gator I hate to tell you but you are wrong. The first generation of MRE's were mostly dehydrated.

Pork and beef patties that required water. I've also seen potato patties that required the same.

All of them were horrible and we screamed for A rations or give us back our old "C"'s.
You could have put the "beef bar" into a sock and used it as a silent kill weapon.
 
To ChinaSeaSailor, You are talking about my two favs.. Many is the times I would have a lit Pall Mall in my mouth,a pound cake in my left and my weapon in my right. Also the P-38--What a lifesaver...I carried on on my keychain for years after I got back to the World. Miss that old boy.
 
I don't know if this counts but here goes. In 1963 I was 10 years old and my Dad was a company commander at Fort Benning GA. On night he brought home some C rations so my brothers and I could try them. I remember eating hamburger I think. I do remember it wasn't like any hamburger I'd ever had before...or since. It was a long time go but I still remember eating that out of the can. Funny the things you remember.
 
Originally posted by sgtjimh:
Does anyone know of anyplace to buy c rats? Used to be able to get then in surplus stores but not any more. I am not demented, I just want some for old times sake. Thanks

May be very difficult to find. Up until MREs were issued units had cases of Cs stored for deployments. Many were condemned and a few made it on to the surplus market.
 
I was drafted in '63 and was given an all expense paid vacation to SE Asia and am very familar with the C rations of WWII vintage.
I hated the corned beef hash, ham and MF'S, & John Wayne candy bars. The beanie weenies and the smokes were about the only thing I liked about the C rations


grizz
 
Viet Nam - 1969 - Infantry
I ate them EVERY day during my tour even when we were securing a Fire Support Base. I never had a favorite because I got tired of all of them - even with tabasco sauce, catsup or mustard. However, given a choice I tryed to latch on to beanie weanies/crackers & cheese with peaches and fruitcake for dessert. When my platoon would get resupplied, we would just open a case of C-rats and dump them all out and everyone picked what they liked best and then we would begin trading rats with one another.
We even traded them for Vietnamese sandwiches (bread with weavils in it and cucumbers) when patrolling thru villages. Memories!
 
USMC 66-70 RVN 67-68 and had a LOT of "C" Rats of the WWll variety. I would eat most any of them but, had a fav or two. The cigarettes were so dry they almost spontaneously combusted when opened but, I smoked them! Camels, Pall Malls, and the occasional Lucky Strike pack!

I have had a taste of the newer MRE's and I would rather have the old C rats. Where did I put that old P-38 anyway? We called them "John Waynes".
 
With every crate of C's came a "SP" pack. The Supplimental Pack held exta cigs, candy, even paperback books. My Fav was Hershey's Tropical Choclate. It had a high parafin content, and you could chew it for hours and hours. I could have all I wanted, 'cause no-one else wanted it. When we drove thru the Montanyard ville's, the guys would throw it out to the 'yard kids. If we weren't driving very fast, they would throw it back in the truck!

Long Barrel
Central Highlands 70-71
USA and USAR 29 years 9 months, 23 days
 
I must be one of the few who liked the Ham and Lima beans-yes they were too salty but that was long before I went on a low salt diet. Yes, C rats were preferable to some of the mess halls I ate in. Don't know about WWII surplus in Vietnam, but at Fort Bragg in 1969 we were eating Korean War ones-vintage 1969.
 
Korea 1951 C rats, but I think there were at least two different packaging of them. One and the most common was the individual man's rations in small cans. There was for a short period of time, some squad packs, for up to 10 men to eat, mess hall style. Now you old guys were mentioning the Lucky Strike Green cigs, there was also Camels, Wings, Phillip Morris, and Rawlies. The later ones included the longer Pall Mall brand. I made a move just about 5 years ago, and found a forgotten full case of C rats, vintage 1948 Most of the food items had dried up, but the peanut butter, choclate bars, and of course the crackers were still as edible as they had ever been. I did prove to my Grandkids you could still smoke those old cigs, if you did not lose all of the tobacco out of the paper getting them out of the small package. Just wet one end, turn it around and light that end, and you can usually touch both ends of the cig together after 2 or 3 drags. As for the P 38 can opener, saw someone advertising them not too long ago, for $5 for 6 of them.
 
It didn't take me long before I knew everything that I wanted to know about "C" rations.

However, I was in the Marine Corps for almost a year before I figured out that my "C" Bag was really a "Sea" Bag.

Like Homer says "D'oh!"
 
I hated the Ham and Lima beans as well as the Eggs and Ham. The pork slices weren't to bad. Liked the beef and potatoes along with the pound cake and fruit cocktail. At least you could moisten the pound cake with he juice of the fruit cocktail. I do remember that it didn't take you long to figure out what the accessory pack code meant. As you can guess, I always grabbed the one that had the pound cake and fruit cocktail

Hawkeye
 
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