Bill is on the scene, ladies and gentlemen. He's not happy about it, mind you, but he's there.

Hmm how good would the food be aboard the ship?

Bill is surrounded by babbies.

I loved it Road.

Haha that was awesome Igraine and Road XD

Poor Bill - damn those one-size-fits-all cryobeds! That was awesome RR.

HA! Oh that took me back RR... We're a bit more old school though, and I have to admit that glistening, shining bit of hell I've never had the not-pleasure of trying. HOWEVER...

Once upon a time, way back in the day before MREs even came with heater packs, there once lived the unholy ancestor to the "Cheese and Veggie Omelet," innocuously known as "Omelet with Ham" (and in case anyone's noticing a pattern here, for the love of all that is good and right in this world, do NOT eat an MRE labeled with the word "omelet!"). It was an abomination that no amount of tabasco sauce could hide, and those who tried to brave the experience, ingested it at room temperature at best.

The one MRE I always went for was Chicken with Rice, not because it was edible (it wasn't, at least not without that whole teeny bottle of tabasco) but for all the good stuff that came with it, like the M&M's that were good to trade. I grew rather fond of the apple jelly and peanut butter "sandwiches" on those rock hard cracker squares.

Haha YES! The "Vegetable Crackers" were the shit! Now they've got all kinds of jelly goodies though. Apple jelly, apple BUTTER, grape jelly, blackberry jam... And of course chocolate-fucking-peanut butter!

That shit's like crack for Junior Marines. I could trade chocolate peanut butter for damn near ANYTHING.

I still miss the MCIs my uncle used to snag for me. (Laughing) To be honest, I thought they were better than MREs as far as taste and texture, even if they were bulkier and heavier. Mmmmm.... the canned cinnamon rolls were the best!

*grumbles some shit about spoiled youngsters and "back when WE had to wolf down MREs cold, without heaters and prissy veggie crackers and pseudo-Nutella... "*

eta: Not a clue what an MCI is, Justric?

They were what you used P-38s to open. Meal, Combat, Individual. They were basically glorified C-Rations. No M&Ms or candy bars. The one set of meals gave you either a poundcake, a cinnamon nut roll, or fruitcake and YOU DID NOT WANT THE FRUITCAKE!! I always wondered why the Accessory Pack was opened when I got them til I figured out he was taking out the cigarettes before sending them to me. One time he managed to get me some rats from the Canadian army - at the time, I thought it strange to have ham and beans for breakfast.

Wait, wait... MREs come with heating packs now??

God, I just realized how old I am...

Yeah. They have heating packs. Pretty useful. I only heated like, two MREs my entire career though. Instead, I tended to collect the heating packs for cold nights in the field. You had to be careful (adding water triggered the heating chemicals, and released nitrogen gas), but if you just added like, half the amount required for heating the meal, you could stuff one up under your flak between your skivvy shirt and your blouse. Helped keep me warm on many a cold night.

EDIT : Also, MCI threw me off, too. In today's Corps, MCI stands for Marine Corps Institute; they're big red books with accompanying tests that you can study to learn new skills, and send them in for promotion points. I did a shit load of them in my 5 years. They have ones on vehicles, some on tactics, weapon systems, nutrition... the Leading Marines MCI and the Personal Financial Management MCI were required for me to pick up Corporal, and they also have shit like Math for Marines, Spelling for Marines, and Grammar for Marines.

My favorites were the M-240B Machinegunner, Small Unit Tactics, and Warfighter Leadership ones. Those are pretty cool. Counter-Terrorism is nifty too.

Do they even still issue P-38s?

No. Nothing comes in cans anymore. It's all bags, stuffed in bags.

At least you know what a P-38 is, so that make me feel slighter better.

I'm so glad I never had to choke down any of that crap.

Thank you for your service.

Oh merciful heaven, who WOULD want fruitcake Justric, like... Ever? *shudders* And don't feel bad hon - we just need to embrace all our years. They've seasoned us like... Like... Fine wine or... Something >.> And thanks Idle ;)

eta: enjoy the relaxings, RR! *waves*

Well, I'll catch y'all in a bit. I'm off to rot my mind with some videogames. I'll check in again in some hours and such.

Igraine said
Oh merciful heaven, who WOULD want fruitcake Justric, like... Ever? *shudders*

I feel like this is some sort of challenge I must meet....

My sister's fiance has a bunch of MRE's in a spare closet

I was afraid to ask why he had them XD

You've no idea how badly I want to lay down in those