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by Jhow0672 » Sun Nov 11, 2018 4:48 pm
The concept was a one-pound, one-a-day ration that you could carry for a 30-day mission. So, your food weight would only be 30lbs, far less than the equivalent 90 MREs (3x30). The drawback was that it only had about 2,100 calories per day, compared to the 3,600 you would get from 3 MREs.
The test participants were drawn from units at Ft Devens (10th SFGA) and included members of my unit (CBTI Co., SOT-A 011 and SOT-A 013) and two ODAs from 2nd Bn (sorry, guys, I don't recall your #s). The SOT-As are SIGINT teams, with linguists 98G and morse intercepters 05H. We typically deployed with ODAs or by ourselves and we were more pack mules, carrying HF commo gear, handcrank generator, VHF and HF intercept gear, DF antennas, and lots of batteries.
The test was thirty days in the field in the area around Ethan Allen firing range near Jericho, VT. Prior to the test, we went down to Natick for a battery of pre-tests, physicals, etc. It included doing a VO2 max test, and getting an accurate bodyfat % which included getting weighed on a scale under water in a tank. We also got to see the lab where they made the prototypes and some of the freeze-drying equipment there.
In the field we kept a diary of the food we ate. We were strictly limited to just the food provided. We also had to test our urine periodically by peeing on some little strips of paper. I can't recall what that measured. There were also surveys to be filled out and even some cognitive tests that we did each day using little 8-bit sinclair computers. This test was roundly hated - the test involved watching a string of random numbers scrolling across the tiny screen and looking for a particular odd-even combination. I remember one buddy who, near the end of the test, lost all motivation and just left the program to run while he made his coffee. Every week or so we would meet up with the scientists from Natick to do more testing (including a 24 hour urine collection - this was hilarious, everyone compared each others color, clarity and volume. Another nameless buddy, who just retired as Cmd Sgt Maj BTW, filled two containers.
The RLW-30s required a lot of water, which you can see from the instructions above. This was a drawback in the field, as we were sourcing our water from local streams. The test team definitely suffered; they lost weight, they complained about hydration and bowels, they got spacey and tired easily toward the end. One guy, who was trim to begin with, lost enough body fat that they pulled him from the test. One guy lost 21 lbs, the most of any participant. At the end they gave him a 21 lb roast to show what 21 lbs looked like. One guy from CBTI co. fell crossing a stream and fractured his arm, but completed the test.
We moved around quite a bit during the test. We climbed Mt. Mansfield at one point. We were close to Ethan Allen for part of the test because we could hear them testing the Vulcan cannons. I remember one day we camped on a hill near EA and my buddy and I were sent to dig a latrine down the hill. We found a spot and dug the latrine, which we used for several days. We noticed a few trees near the latrine that had some engineer tape on it, but we didn't think anything about it. One day, this jeep pulls up and two guys from the post engineer pull up at our camp site. They came to blow up an un-exploded 75mm shell that was nearby. We asked where the shell was, and they said, "oh, it's right down the hill, we marked it with engineering tape!" Right by our latrine, in fact!
The test was actually my first field exercise at 10th gp. I was fresh from AIT at Goodfellow AFB, and had not even been to jump school at that point. I think I got put on it because the only job requirement was to eat mres, provide urine samples and walk around the woods with a pack full of radio gear.
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