Another “What did you do in the war, daddy?” post

Spending a goodly part of my military career in the field as a tank commander, I can tell you that food was sometimes an interesting experience. Take my stint in Germany, for instance. It was the intention of the command to provide two hot meals a day for the troops (us) when in the field. This was usually breakfast and supper. Dinner was usually “C” rations, those lovable precursors to today’s MRE’s (Meals Rejected by Everybody).

So, two hot meals. Sounds good, huh? Well, we were a combat battalion. When we went to the field, so did the cooks. And they cooked in the field. And we were tankers. We didn’t stay in big groups and we tended to spread out never near the messtent, which was in the battalion rear. So breakfast was usually delivered by the First Sergeant or the supply sergeant in the back of a jeep in these big insulated cans called “mermite” cans.

Inside each can which held about 5 gallons altogether, there were three inserts, and there was breakfast. Scrambled eggs in one insert, pancakes or french toast in another, and the third would hold a concoction implying maple syrup. A big thermos jug held hot coffee, or at least, something reported to be coffee. Cold milk and juice came with the meal.

Scrambled eggs, pancakes and syrup. Sounds good, huh? Well, imagine the eggs started out powdered, the were scrambled hard and then they barely survived a five-mile, thirty minute ride over hill and dale. The meal lost its glamour. The eggs cahnged from yellow to some strange greenish tint you’d expect of an alien life-form. And when dumped unceremoniously in your stainless steel messkit in the woods in Germany on a thirty-degree fall day, you’d better eat fast, or the food was cold. The coffee? Take a big canteen cup full and carry it around, relishing the warmth it radiates to cold fingers. You might even drink some. Who knows?

Supper was equally creative, but you didn’t miss a chance to get the food. One day my crew and I managed to catch the mess tent just as the cooks were getting ready to dump a pan of reconstituted porkchops which weren’t going to be eaten, and the four of us ate three dozen pork chops. And we were very happy. Simple pleasures, and all that…

The reason the pork chops were going to be dumped was the other problem. The unit which was supposed to show up for chow didn’t make it to the training area because of a mishap with the German railroad train that was bringing them in. This happened often. For various reasons, you could end up separated from the group. And you might miss the hot meal. At least the one prepared by the cooks. You see, tankers have the wondrous ability to carry a lot of extras, since we don’t have to pack it on our backs like grunts or other lesser lifeforms. With 750 horsepower and 53 tons, a few extra pound sof food wasn’t likely to be a problem. I ALWAYS had a food supply: canned goods, candy bars, etc. And a tank has a single burner stove issued with it, so we could cook. And we had ten gallons of water with us. Food was seldom OUR problem.

Plus, on extended field exercises, my first wife would send me parcels filled with necessities. Which is why one fine night in Hohenfels, Germany, my tank crew and I were sitting beside our disabled tank, feasting on a hot pot of soup, a home-made pecan pie, a loaf of dark German bread and the meat of two coconuts. And the First Sergeant, a real professional soldier, he pulls up in the dark in his jeep, having hunted over half the training area because our second lieutenant platoon leader’d given him the wrong map coordinates. He’s there to deliver us the best he could do, “C” rations. and we invited him to sit with us and eat pie and coconut and hot soup.

The U.S. military commissary system was good for some interesting finds, like the time our commissary in Mainz ended up with a lot of Camembert cheese. I love Camembert, especially when it ripens to the point that little gold flecks peak through its snowy rind. This is cheese to perfection, in my opinion, but the commissary manager saw that, and immediately marked the whole load down as almost spoiled. For a couple of bucks I walked out of there with a couple dozen five-inch wheels of cheese to take with me as I went to the field as an umpire for the annual REFORGER exercises. And that’s why, when my lieutenant’s jeep broke down, and he left to go get help, when he came back, I was sitting on the hood, munching a particularly ripe wheel of cheese. Things like that will get rapidly get you a reputation as eccentric, even in armor, which is known for its eccentricity.

Other things: A Cajun is nothing without his Tabasco sauce. I carried two bottles. In this non-hostile environment, they fit nicely in an ammo pouch along with salt and pepper. We got a lot of snacks overseas in cans that you’d normally buy in bags here in the States. Like pork rinds. The can was the size of a coffee can, with the pop-top and a plastic resealable cover. My drill was to pop the top, dump in a prodigious amount of Tabasco, put the plastic lid on, shake the can, and then start eating. Had one moocher in the company, always bumming snacks. He wanted to bum some of my pork rinds. He did it just once. I hated to hear a grown man whimper…

Jiffy-Pop popcorn. Remember that stuff? You can still get it, you know. Well, we’d take a pan of Jiffy-Pop and a couple of army-issue heat tablets, light the tablets, shake the Jiffy-Pop, and we had hot and very welcome popcorn. And Jiffy-Pop pans fit very neatly in the tank’s document bag, nestled safely among the tech manuals. I won’t even talk about how a bottle of wine wrapped in a Stars and Stripes newspaper will ride well in the breech of a 105 gun…