Nam era "C" rat's

We ate Korean war dated c rats when I was going through AZR (Air Base Ground Defense School) in 1975 at Camp Bullis, TX. I got turkey loaf one night at the M-60 range and didn't notice the slight swelling of the can, when I punctured it with my P 38 rotten turkey juice under pressure shot all over me. Man did I stink until I could get a clean uniform. Seems the cigs went like flash paper they were so dry. Did like the tuna, and the spaghetti was tolerable heated, only 1 guy would eat the green eggs and ham in water, and he got them all.

Glad I didn't have to survive on them for an extended time like you Nam vets...
 
We ran some recon's with a unit of ROK Marines ( Republic of Korea )..They had their own C rat's, provided by the US..Whew! Some really hot stuff..The canned Kimchi was super hot..A Marine of Mexican decent who loved hot stuff, broke out in a hot sweat, when he ate a whole can of Kimchi on a bet..The ROK's really got a laugh out of that..
The other rat's they had were to "fishy" smelling for my likes..
Reminded me of VC "fish pot's" that I had stepped in..:(
 
As aircrew we resupplied many of the local firebases.
Depending what we were carrying, the C's would sometimes be loaded internal, in pallets. Naturally anything loaded internal was "freegame" so we usually helped ourselves as we were never sure if we were going to shut-down for chow or would be eating while flying sorties.
To heat, I would poke a hole in the can and walk back to the aft transmission (Chinook has five transmissions) and jam the can up so the can rested next to the hot casing of the transmission. Wait 10 minutes and Voila - a hot C-rat.
Don't get me started on SP Packs -
I watched grunts break the metal fasteners around the cases w/ the tulip flash suppressor but, in 1970 they were mostly gone.
As a Doorgunner, we all used the trick of fastening a C-rat can to the ammo can clips on our M60's. Our M60's were fed from a mini-gun can strapped to the deck and fed straight to the gun - the can was ingenious.
Always liked the lima beans w/ ham, hated the eggs, really liked the meat slices & potatoes, beany weenies, & spaghetti as long as they were heated.
All the left-overs were either tossed to the Vietnamese kids or thrown from the bird usually low level, at speed (bet ya can't hit that!).
 
I recall once being shown the secret of folding the C-ration box in such a way that burning it would heat the main course. Like so many bits of useful field craft it was rarely if ever taught.
In WWII it was found the issued combat rations provided nowhere near enough calories and the GIs of that conflict often had to get by on "emergency rations"-aka "dog biscuits"-that incompetent commanders relied too heavly on. In Vietnam too many incompetents thought making their troops go hungry was a good way to "toughen" them up.
 
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C-rat

At the PX could get Vienna sausage / Deviled ham & crackers . Can't look at either since
 
One other thing I remember about DaNang was the French influence. DaNang was off limits when I was stationed there '70-71, but being attached to the Army's Navy had its benefits, we operated a little ferry that went from Camp Perry across the river to town, it was for high level officer jerk-offs only, but it gave us an in with the gate guards. The French left behind their addition to the gene pool and anybody that ever got to see the beautiful round eyed half Vietnamese girls can attest to their special attraction. Also was the French Bagette, or French bread in small football shaped loaves. You had to get them fresh made that day to really appreciate how spectacular they were. If you tried to eat one the next day it would be loaded with weevils, no matter how hard you tried to keep them out, and trust me we tried everything. Somebody said the weevils were in the bread before it even hit the shelves or baskets.
 
the part French and part Vietnamese girls could be gorgeous. anyone try heating up rations by lighting a piece of c4. burned with a light green flame.
 
perrazi said:
the part French and part Vietnamese girls could be gorgeous. anyone try heating up rations by lighting a piece of c4. burned with a light green flame.
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Yep - a piece about as round as a nickel will do ya. It heats up a canteen cup, for coffee, real fast too.
We actually got a "stern" talking to when we asked for claymore mines to replace the ones we took apart to get the C4.
You would not believe how creative an 18yo kid can get with access to plastic explosives.
 
perrazi said:
the part French and part Vietnamese girls could be gorgeous. anyone try heating up rations by lighting a piece of c4. burned with a light green flame.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I already posted the C4 method..You could light the C4 with a lit cigarette..I found that a canteen cup with the c rat poured in it worked the best..You had to be careful, C4 burned really super hot..We never disassembled the Claymores, we were supplied boxes of C4 bars, if I remember correctly they came 10 to a box of 1 lb bars, might have been 12 wrapped and sealed in plastic..with det cord..Once the plastic was opened the C4 would harden..
 
During Korea my Mother sent packages to everyone She knew that was "Over There". The one request from "Her Boys" was "Please No Spam". This Lady was a master at sending Handguns wrapped in wax paper concealed inside a fruit cake.
 
jimmyj said:
During Korea my Mother sent packages to everyone She knew that was "Over There". The one request from "Her Boys" was "Please No Spam". This Lady was a master at sending Handguns wrapped in wax paper concealed inside a fruit cake.
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WOW!, Finally a use for a fruit cake other than a door stop..:D
 
litenlarry said:
Yeah ham and mothers, I actually become fond of them, enough hot sauce and it was edible..Three month's straight of C rat's will make a grown man come to terms with starvation..
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I was doing good if I could get one can down a day. In Korea
Most of the crats and ammo was dated 1944-45, left over ww2 stuff.
 
litenlarry said:
I like apricot's and few others did, so I would make some awesome trades..Fruit cocktail and peaches were the best..

Remember the canned bread ? Hard as a brick and a brick would have been easier on your teeth..We still ate it, but thanks to my mother, she sent me "care packages" and included beef bouillon..Hot water with the additive along with some cooked rice made it nutritious at best..Did I mention Hot sauce?..:)
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Only saw the bread once, most of the time the rear escalon pogs grabbed all the good stuff and left what they didn't want for the grunts.
 
I was a Medic in a field unit when I was in the Army, and I was spoiled rotten by my guys. I always got the best meals from the C-rat boxes, and my C-rats were always heated up for me - usually in an empty ammo can full of hot water that had been heated up by either a Jeep or 2.5 ton truck engine. I think the most respected guy in the outfit was the one who actually liked the Ham & Lima Beans - you had to be tough to eat that stuff.

Regards,

Dave
 
Model520Fan said:
Yeah, but how often did you have to eat battle rats? When I was in (63-88), I would have sooner eaten Navy chow than go to a medium-grade restaurant. You had to spend a little money to get better food than what the commissarymen were putting out. Of course, the presentation wasn't always that great. Actually, it was NEVER that great if you weren't commissioned, but the actual food was always acceptable and usually very good, and interesting to boot.

Of course, that was in the airedale navy, which may have been better than blackshoe. I have heard rumors that some of the submarine service chow was even better.
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I never had lobster before I got board the USS Lawrence in 1973. There were things I didn't like, Mystery Meat, and chitlins, powdered eggs, powdered milk.
I enlisted at 143 pounds and was discharged at about 190 #
Breakfast on a good day you could order up what you wanted. On a bad day powdered greenish looking eggs scrambled. The steaks never had justice done to them.
Well not until some were spirited to local park and grilled by R Division IC/EM/HT . I didn't hump supplies for free so I taxed it :)
The sea rats and battle rats happened maybe 5 times.
Not to worry I had 20 pounds of Provolone Cheese in the
A/C duct in the IC room and a jar of cherry peppers.
 
On a stateside training deployment once we stayed in the field in 12 man tents and ate C-rats. See not all AF jobs are air conditioned offices.
After a couple weeks of them I saw a can of Dinty More stew auctioned off for ten dollars which was a good sum of money then. Wish I'd had the foresight to pack a few cans and make some money.
By that time (mid 70s) they'd started taking the cigarettes out of the C-rat cartons. If you ran out of them you did without or hope you had a generous buddy.
 
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