New to MRE's and to here

[Treesuit]

Cablemonkey,

That's sort of true in some parts of the country or on some posts. Sometimes comissaries (supermarkets) on Air Force Bases or Army posts have spur of the moment or clearance items and they put them out for sale in bins and sell them for $1.00 - 3.00 USD. The last time I saw something of that was in 2006 at an Air Force Base and they were selling TOTM's for 2.50 a bag. Back in the early 1990's they used to sell the brown bag MRE's for super cheap and they were perfect for grabbing a few to go camping, hunting or hiking. Now its hit or miss. But just ask someone who might be close to a base and ask if they can check out if they have some.

[cablemonkey]

I wish I could find the article I was reading as it was along the lines of that MREs are authorized for PX sale. If the local PX doesn't have them, they can order them. I'll see if I can dig it up and post it here.

[Treesuit]

Cablemonkey,

Hell yeah, if you can find that article pass it along to me. I'd like to see if I can try an pull it off at the local comissary. If so I'll report it here. Thanks

[housil]

I wish I could find the article I was reading as it was along the lines of that MREs are authorized for PX sale. If the local PX doesn't have them, they can order them. I'll see if I can dig it up and post it here.

I can recall you (=Military members) could buy them here in the PX, but they were very pricy...

[Treesuit]

Housil,

Do you mean overseas at bases in Europe? If so then I imagone it would be harder to acquire them. Maybe not so much here in the US. Like I mentioned in my earlier post if someone could send me that link cablemonkey had I could give it a shot at my local comissary and see if it works. If it does work then we might have another avenue to get MRE's? it's worth a try.

[housil]

Housil,

Do you mean overseas at bases in Europe?

Ja.

You could ask a soldier to buy you a case at the PX and sometimes they did. I can´t recall the prices for sure, but I guess it was ~ $100 per case. But all the US installations are closed over here. Even the bigges military supermarket in Europa

[cablemonkey]

OK I found it. It was on the site, here (lol)

This page http://www.mreinfo.com/us/mre/us-govt.- ... tions.html says "One note:. according to this FAQ on the DSCP website: http://www.dscp.dla.mil/subs/rations/FAQs.pdf "retired military can purchase MREs from their local commissary. If your local commissary does not sell MREs, you can ask them to do so, as they are eligible to purchase them from us."

But when I checked that link, I couldn't find that statement. What I did find was this, also on the Natick site:

"It is DSCP policy NOT to sell rations to individuals, whether members of the Armed Services or civilians. The Department of Defense regulations and DSCP policy permit the sale of rations to the following: U.S. military organizations, federal government-funded activities, activities empowered to perform a federal-government-legislated function, a DoD sponsored non-appropriated fund instrumentality, a State Department sponsored employee commissary located outside the U. S., a foreign government when an authorized contractual relationship has been established, a federal government contractor, when the contract specifically provides for the purchase of stock fund items by the contractor and other entities when authorized by duly appointed officials. In some instances sales are only permitted to these entities if other conditions are met."

So is a base commissary a "U.S. military organization" ?

[Treesuit]

Cable monkey,

Thanks for digging that piece up. I read through the link to the DSCP website and it was a bit of fluff with government speak in it. Some was interesting but it seems that DSCP is very particular about who they give or sale MRE's to. While I don't think it's impossible, I do think that DSCP does try to make it impossible or make a person/organization jump through a lot of red tape and hoops to get a case or two. That's how I am deciphering it, maybe I'm wrong though? Perhaps our webmaster Kman can wade through this and maybe explain it more here?

As for your question: "So is a base commissary a "U.S. military organization" ? Yes and No. And it gets watery even for someone like me who has been in the military for a long time. Yes, a commissary is on a military base that services military people and retirees BUT when you go in and look around there is a organizational name of DECA, labeled everywhere. Now I think this is a private DoD name they give to comissaries. From what I've heard in the past it is a non profit entity that provides a service for whatever base a comissary is on to service members but does not receive any funding from the DoD.

I'm not a expert on this and I'd have to dig around some more to fully explain it. Unfortuantely if I'm going to try this experiment could somebody please explain to me the rules DSCP set forth, that way I'm better informed. I'll look into this and post any findings here.