Late 1980's

[donaldjcheek]

Yeah, in Korea you could always tell when the 2nd Division was about to go on alert - all the "chogie wagons" would head out to the field.

[Treesuit]

Steve,
Hey I tell ya the "gut trucks" must have been employed by the North Koreans or something becuase they always had a fix on our location. Also I have to agree in your earlier posting that the dehydrated Beef Patty was the tops, I had that when I first came into the Corps and it was a real treat to get it. Just so much food but there is one time I got a bad pouch of beans in one, like you it made me loose my lunch in 5 minutes. Not good.
I'm with the Forest Service now and and when I came in 10 years ago they still had those disgusting boil in the bag meals left over from the 70's. I guess you guys on the Flagstaff IHC got spared the torture of having to eat those on the fireline. Us common smoke chasers usually got the worst of the worst. Oh well
Brian, D 2/12 Okinawa Japan

[sahkeah]

Yeah Treesuit,
I bet there will be a lot of rations being eaten this fire season! Pretty dry out there and lots of fires right now across the west. I had the chance to eat a LRRP ration that a California hotshot gave me one time at a fire. It was spagetti and came in like a cloth OD bag. The best thing, was the orange flavored cornflake disk.

[Treesuit]

Steve,
Wow, that must have been a real treat. I'm so jealous! I remember I got a original MRE in my smokechaser pack when I first joined and it was the "chicken a la king" or " chicken of death" one. It must have been one of the earlier MRE's because of the contents looked pretty old. Let's just say I passed on that one.

Yeah there sure are alot of fires going on around the West and I bet somewhere sombody is enjoying a MRE on the line. More often than not they are switching to brown bags for lunches instead of the MRE's. I heard it's cheaper and more efficient for the contractor at a base camp to throw together a brown bag lunch than to have GSA order the MRE's. At least that would be efficient in my mind. Every time I go on a off district fire I try to grab a extra case or two but the supply pogues get real petty at the supply points. Kind of sucks.

I do remember back in 2001 I was working on the Clearwater National Forest I stumbled on some old LRRP foil packages in a small cache in the backcountry. I was so tempted to grab one, but my squad leader told me to throw them out since she wasn't going to let anybody eat them due to age. It was one of those times you had to do what you were told....again it kind of sucks.

[MCIera]

I know it may sound odd here, but I think the majority of firefighters, as well as other public safety workers, would also prefer a bag lunch with fresh ingredients to an MRE or one of those canned shelf stable meal packs.

More often than not they are switching to brown bags for lunches instead of the MRE's. I heard it's cheaper and more efficient for the contractor at a base camp to throw together a brown bag lunch than to have GSA order the MRE's.

[Treesuit]

MCIera,
Nope doesn't sound odd at all, if fact it kind of fits in this forum. I know for a fact that a firefighter out on a fireline would rather have a fresh meal from the brown bag rather than a MRE. I've been to some major complex fires in the west and a brown bag with lots of name brand foods is a welcome sight. Not to mention all the goodies you get. You have to be careful you get it from the mess section personnel directly and not some flunky or prisoner working for them. Sometimes those kind of people short you on the food items. Had that happen once on a fire.
As for my previous posting I mentioned about the cost of a MRE to a brown bag lunch and I had to think. Is it more expensive to pass out an MRE over a contracted lunch bag? I keep hearing all the time about these contractors showing up on big complex fires and just making a killing from the state and federal agencies catering to the firefighters. Anybody got any hard info they can post on that topic???

[MCIera]

I don't know, and wouldn't want to have to experience catered feeding at a wildland fire, though my hat certainly goes off to all those who risk their lives in such service. The times that I've experienced catered meals, it's usually been fortunate enough that they were rather fresh and often up-scale food from local caterers that were either billed to the agencies at prices that were comparable or less than the DSCP price for an MRE, or were donated by the caterer. There have been instances where a Red Cross food wagon showed up and fed us fairly basic prepared foods like spagetti, hot dogs, and/or chili; I'm not sure who paid for that.

[sahkeah]

Those people in the fire camps sure ate well!!! I remember we really didn't get any 'hot' meals and if they did, they came cold in vat-cans from a helicopter. Usually they didn't have enough also, but it sure was welcomed and a morale booster. You get tired of c-rats, but when your hungry, you eat anything. Like I said, those REMF's or pogues ate good, but we really didn't see that stuff, unless they were leftovers. We were always on the fire line or on the mountain. It may be different now but can only speak like how it was during the early 80's. We took our own food too, cans of meat and noodles, candy, granola with dried milk, gorp, etc. Anything to break the monotony of the rats. There was one dinner that came in like a foil pouch that you could buy at the grocery store that everybody got I forgot. It fit just right on a shovel and you would just put the shovel on top of some hot coals from the fire you were fighting or fire-line you were watching. They couldn't just bring us down every time a meal was ready for the pogues, etc.

[Treesuit]

Sahkeah,
Wow that is a tale, I can't really say that ever happened to me but I always got a full lunch on the line and a hearty meal in camp.

When I wrote my last entry I started checking around and doing some reserch. I found that the USFS contracted caterers to feed the masses on the fireline early in the 20th century. But it wasn't until the late 70's and early 80's that California had a permanent food service unit to it's state firefighting system. I found an article in the April 2006 issue of "Wildland Firefighter" magazine that describes fireline lunches and the food service on firelines in the 20th century and today. It's apply titled "When trees burn, pigs die" It just refes to the fact that every fireline somewhere at sometime has a ham meal going or a ham sandwhich in a lunch bag.

It also mentions that the USFS had a lot of surplus C-rations after WWII and some fire veterans remember eating those on the line. It does mention that the USFS did develop a canned ration for fireline use sometime in the 40's or 50's. It doesn't give enough detail but it does describe it as having more food than a normal C-rat and having a accessory packet with condiments in it. There is no picture but I would imagine that it might have been close to a MCI but in a gold colored can. Lastly it goes on to mention the frozen "gag bags", those didn't last very long.

Nowadays everybody has a least a can of something and/or some other MRE goodies in their packs just in case you accidently don't get chow. But that happens very rarely