quote:

Originally posted by olroy:
s.o.s.

In it's various and many forms. Made with Ham. Made with ground beef. Made with white gravy. Made with tomato sauce. Served over biscuits. Served over toast. Whatever Cookie had too much of that day.

Nick

Only had sos a few times. About 80% of all my meals in the service came out of cans that were 14-15 years old.

So should we start a Map the Veterans project? Looks like we are overwhelmingly patriotic and of good taste! (re: Barth)

Never could get pass the liver

SOS.

Badly done, it was chipped beef in a white sauce over toast. The old chipped beef needed to be soaked overnight to tenderize it and reduce its saltiness. If that wasn't done, it was tough, stringy and salty.

My dad was so warped by bad SOS that we only had anything in a white sauce in his absence. Fortunately, he had lunch at Kiwanis every Thursday, so we had creamed salmon on toast, and loved it.

In later years, the supply of canned or jarred chipped and salted beef dried up. Or should I say, the supply was exhausted. The meat became browned burger meat, often with some pork sausage added. I loved it, and even looked forward to it. The VA used to serve it before they switched their food court to private concessionaires, and I would schedule my volunteer work around whatever day they had it.

I never told my dad.

Ham and Lima Beans.

In Vietnam, it was common to attempt to create good will by giving C rations to the locals. This was often done by throwing the cans from a moving truck as a convoy passed through the village, a la Santa Claus in a Christmas parade.

Well, the Vietnamese kids might not have been able to speak or read English, but the ungrateful brats knew enough to recognize Ham and Lima Beans, and threw the cans right back at the convoy.

Which, of course leads me to wonder if, at a later time, starving Ethiopians would have thrown them back. MREs came to be known as Meals Rejected by Ethopians, with reference to the period that they were starving there.

My son tells me that MREs were pretty decent by the time of his Afghanistan service, and could recite exactly what was good and what wasn't, and how to improve several of them.

He did not believe my story about heating C rations with C3 or C4.

Sadly, (or perhaps not) my service predated both LRP rations and MREs, but I understand neither included Ham and Lima Beans.

It was common to trade or combine C rats, resulting in such delectations as pound cake with melted M&M frosting, etc. The pound cake was almost like hardtack, but when heated and moistened by something like the peaches or fruit cocktail, became delicious, so we traded a lot.

It was common to yell out what you had to trade, in hopes of communicating with someone who wanted to share or trade. Of course, cigarettes were the most desirable commodity, and Ham and Lima Beans the least. Quite often, you could hear a poor soul crying plaintively into the night, "Ham and Lima Beans", with no response. This often went on for quite a while. I often suspected this was an attempt at humor, as it could be heard on quiet nights on occasions where C rations were not part of the cuisine.

Anybody remember pairing up shelter halves and the horseshoe roll?

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Anybody remember pairing up shelter halves and the horseshoe roll?

Yep. Part of sniper training included bivouac "experiences".

Bill, tell your son i will back you up on heating c rations with C4. It only took a small piece to heat up a canteen cup of water. You don't want to stomp on a burning piece to put it out unless you want to lose your foot and leg. We made stoves out of C rat cans by using a can opener or bayonet to make holes around the bottom and the top of the can. We were able to get LRPs towards then end and that made a nice change of menu as long as you could get enough water. Like you we traded things, every one had things they liked. To this day i hate fruit cocktail.

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Originally posted by Shadow man:
Bill, tell your son i will back you up on heating c rations with C4. It only took a small piece to heat up a canteen cup of water.

Yeah, he believes me now. That was when he was fresh out of demolition training, and full of procedures. I don't remember if we had C3 or C4, either.

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You don't want to stomp on a burning piece to put it out unless you want to lose your foot and leg.

As I recall, it burned pretty fast, so I can't imagine wanting to put it out in that big a hurry.

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To this day i hate fruit cocktail.

I see I am clearly out of step here, liking both SOS and fruit cocktail. I still enjoy fruit cocktail today over sliced pound cake. But, now, I add a little Ameretto.

BTW, our hillbillies prized the fruit cocktail for flavoring their moonshine. or maybe for starting the mash. I used to let it ferment a bit, and pour it over ice cream, like Norwegian Fruit Soup. there is a point in the fermentation process when it is just right. One day later, and it gets bitey.

If you got a newbie that used too big a piece you could have flames that were 2-3 feet high which could give away your position if it was towards dusk. This could cause them to panic. Water put it out quickly but a lot of time water was a precious commodity where we were. One time i saw that our artillery LT. who was our FO looked a little depressed so i walked over and dumped a handful of mini-marshmellows into his hot chocolate. We had been out for quite a while so he was very surprised to see something like that. Another time i asked him if he had any crackers and when he said yes, i gave him a tin of smoked oysters.....you shoulda seen his eyes!! My dad sent pretty good care packages to me, he had been in the Battle of the Bulge so he knew that little things could make a big difference in morale.

Just talking the mess hall out of an onion or two before we went out from the base for a couple of weeks could make a big difference at mealtime.

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Another time i asked him if he had any crackers and when he said yes, i gave him a tin of smoked oysters.....you shoulda seen his eyes!!

Too cool! When Josh was in Iraq, he wanted Smoked Baby Clams and Sardines in his care packages. When my 4 kids were little I would make them do tricks and competitions to win a prize - you guessed it - smoked clams and oysters! I was simply trying to expand their food horizons beyond Big Macs, but apparently I created a taste of "home".

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In it's various and many forms.

...creamed,chipped beef? ......hint bris

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If I was there, you wouldn't have paid for that either.

Thank you Bill for the thought.

see www.goldencorral.com click military appreciation another free meal!

Beware of Golden Corral. Susan and I both got extreme MSG symptoms there. We don't have full-blown MSG allergy, and usually all MSG does to us is make our mouths dry a couple of hours later. This time, we had not only that, but minor flu symptoms. They dissipated after a lot of water and a nap, so it wasn't the flu.

A couple of our acquaintances have even worse MSG reactions there.

However, if you are OK with MSG, a lot of their food is pretty tasty. We would return if it were not for the MSG. Quite often, MSG can be detected as just a really salty taste, but other times it is masked.