Dances With Dogs: C-Rations, MREs, and Operation Pizza Drop (Another GI story)

For those of you who believe that we are loosing our edge as a superpower, consider: Since WW2, we have managed to maintain a large standing military without significantly affecting either the treasury or the economy, a feat that has never before been accomplished in history. Even the Roman Empire disbanded the bulk of their legions after a major campaign.

Some detractors even claim we no longer have the ability to maintain effective defensive operations - loosing our edge. Really? Just ask Saddam Hussein. Or Osama Bin Laden. Oh, wait, there dead!

Further: The draft was abolished in 1972, so for the past 40 years, this military has been comprised entirely of volunteers, creating a professional military that is the envy of many other nations, and feared by others.

Proud to have served

But the greatest indication of our power is that we, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, managed to bring down the Soviet Union, along with most of the worlds communist regimes, ending the cold war without firing a shot!

I am proud to say that I played a small part in this, having serve in the United States Air Force from 1983 to 1987. I fixed radios, primarily air traffic control systems. Not exactly a heroic job, except to the pilot who needed to land.

An army marches on its stomach.

~Napoleon Bonaparte

In order to maintain an army, on must feed an army. Like Goldfish, if you forget to feed them, they die. Dead soldiers are not very useful, except maybe to one's enemy.

"Box Lunches"

Although called "C-Rations", the true

c-ration was discontinued in 1958 and

replace with the MCI: Meal, Combat,

Individual ration.

So in order to maintain live, useful GIs, methods of food preparation and delivery were invented by the military, which includes tin cans, C-rations, and MREs.

My first encounter with military rations was in basic training. We were away from any chow hall, so we were given C-rations, a pastry, and a soda. Mine was Ham and Eggs, along with a few supporting food items. I also had a bear claw, and a Coke. The Ham and Eggs were edible, despite a slight greenish tinge. I asked around, and the other trainees who got Ham and Eggs also noted the greenish tinge. We suspect this may have been the inspiration for Dr. Seuss' 1960 classic Green Eggs and Ham.

During the 1980s, the Box Lunches were replaced by the Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Efficient, nutritious, the MREs had it all. Except flavor. I am told that the MREs issued out now are better, flavor-wise, and I will take the word of returning Iraq War vets, but in the 1980's the MRE came in 4 flavors that were are variations of styrofoam.

Now let me state hear, for the record, that despite what you might have heard about food in the military chow halls, it is actually quite good. The "bad" food was from the time of our grandfathers. Now, with the absence of a draft (or any other way to force a man to serve in the military), the food had better be edible, or he ain't re-enlisting.

But there are times (like during war) that chow halls are not available, and the GIs must survive on C-rations or MREs. But when you are being fired on, food quality is not high on your priorities.

So this is all leading up to another of my GI stories.

So, people have asked me if my GI stories are true. Of course they are, mostly. GI all tell stories, and the unofficial agreement we vets have is that the be true. The can be embellished, in fact that is expected, but they must have some basis in actual fact. For example: telling about flying a F-16 when you were never a pilot is not allowed.

Prelude to the operation:
Operation: Pizza Drop. It happened in '86, when I was stationed at Kelly AFB, TX (South of San Antonio). Myself and two others (SrA Bob VanHorne and A1C Tom Johnson) were volunteered to be the communications assistance during a Security Police students' training exercise. "Volunteered" meaning at the time the shop NCOIC (non-commissioned officer in charge) asked for volunteers, we were out and thus unable to defend ourselves. "Out", as in out on a job as opposed to sitting on our butts in the shop drinking coffee... But I digress.

The SP students were undergoing a field training exercise, what we called "playing army." We were there to fix there radios (etc) when they got broken. This would be all week, and wouldn't have been so bad, except we were required to remain on Camp Bullis (north of San Antonio) the entire week. This meant:

no alcohol for 5 days,
no women for 5 days,
no other entertainment for 5 days, other than a portable radio we found in our quarters,
and (most importantly)
no real food for 5 days.

We were housed in a 1940s pre-fabricated building that served as our temporary shop and quarters. It smelled old. We were not pleased.

There was a make-shift chow hall for non-students. The food quality was not up to our standard, ranking two levels below jail food (Yes, I have been to jail, briefly - I'll tell that story sometime in another blog entry). Breakfast was always scrambled eggs (watery) and some form of pig (at least it resembled pig products, but the taste was unique). Lunch was sandwiches. Dinner was unidentifiable without dental records. Coffee was always available at mealtime, and at least that was decent - but there are federal laws against providing GIs with undrinkable coffee.

So by the second day, we really wanted real food.

Gunny Highway

"Improvise, Adapt, Overcome"

Around this time, Heartbreak Ridge (1986) staring Clint Eastwood as Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway was in the theaters. One of the reoccurring lines in the movie was "Improvise. Adapt. Overcome" which soon became an oft spoken catchphrase used by us real GIs.

So, based on this catchphrase, we formulated the plans that would become:

Operation Pizza Drop

The Situation: We wanted real food.

The Objective: To acquire real food.

This could be achieved either by a) going to real food, or b) having real food come to us.

As it was not likely that we could leave Camp Bullis without being missed, option "b" (having real food come to us) was the more likely to be successful.

There are several types of restaurants that deliver, the two most predominant being Pizza and Chinese. Whereas I would have personally preferred Chinese, Pizza was chosen and (realistically) easier to obtain.

Fort Leavenworth Prison

Where GIs who get caught breaking

into offices to order to use the phone

and order pizzas are sent.

The first obstacle to overcome was making the call. There were no pay phones on Camp Bullis, and (being the 1980s) we didn't have cell phones. The only phones were in the HQ offices, so if we wanted to call domino's, we'd have to sneak into a locked office to use a phone (which wasn't a very good idea as breaking and entering had serious consequences), or...

...tap into a phone line!

Being communication technicians we had the equipment and knowledge to tap into a phone line. All we had to do is open the demarc box, disconnect on of the phone lines, and the (using a test set) and call. Our chances of getting caught were slim. If someone happened to still be in their office, and tried to call and found their phone dead, the first person they would contact would be the comm specialists - us!

"Yes sir, we will look into your phone outage right away. Don't worry, we will have it fixed in 30 minutes, or less!"

As it turned out, nobody reported a phone outage.

Now that we had a phone, we needed a number. If there were any phonebooks, they would be in the offices. I suppose we could have dialed 411, but as it happened I had in my little black book (along with phone numbers of cute girls and bars) the number to the Dominos near the base, which we called to get the number of the Dominos closer to us.

That's when it got interesting.

As soon as someone answered, I asked to speak to the manager. After a few moments on hold, a woman came on the line and identified herself as the manager.

I explained to her that I wished to place and order for 12 assorted large pizzas and 6 2-litter sodas (we were laying in supplies for a few days, and I wanted them to be delivered. She said OK, and took the order, and calculated a total cost.

So far so good.

Then she asked where they were to be sent.

Problem

The "directions" I gave here were for the driver to go 5-6 miles outside of there delivery area, up Camp Bullis Rd (on which, at that time, contained nothing except a fenced military area on the right and scrub brush on the left) for about 2-3 miles, until he saw a GI in camouflage come out of hiding and flag him down.

I promised a $20 tip for the driver.

"Are you serious?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am. We are currently on an exercise and can't leave the base. We have been eating crap for two days and we need real food."

You could hear this woman thinking hard over the phone. I was prepared to up the tip to $30.

"This is so weird, it has to be real" she finally decided.

"Yes, ma'am"

"Please understand that, because of the unique nature of your order, we cannot guarantee 30 minutes or less delivery"

"Yes ma'am. That is acceptable."

"Thank-you for choosing Dominos"

End of conversation.

So now we go into phase two of Operation:Piazza Drop: sending a man out to retrieve the pizza.

Tom got elected to go because

He was the smallest, and would be easier to get over the fence, and
Bob and I outranked him. The military is not a democracy, but even if it was, Bob and I would vote for Tom to go, and it would be 2 to 1 against him.

So, it was dark, and the three of us sneaked out of the building, through the compound, and into the trees until we reached the fence. A blanket was brought and thrown over the barbwire (to keep Tom from being cut up - he'd bleed on our food!) and Tom climbed the chain link, over the barb, down the other side. We watched as he disappeared into the darkness, then lit up cigarettes.

Yeah, I know. We were trying to avoid detection, so we light up. But we were addicted.

Tom returned with the pizza and soda, laughing. The driver was quoted as saying "@#$%!! This is for real." Tom tossed pizza and soda over the fence before climbing over himself. We them snuck back through the trees, through the compound, avoiding detection until we returned to our building.

Thusly, Operation: Pizza Drop was completed with no problem, except for one:

As we were enjoying our real food, and patting ourselves on the back for a mission well planned and executed, the door to our building opened up. We barely had time to hide the pizza when MSgt MacMinn entered the room.

"Could one of you do me a favor and..." he began, then suddenly stopped, changed facial expressions, then asked "Why do I smell Pizza?"

You can hide a box, but not the smell. There is an old saying that says if all else fails, try the truth.

"Would you like a piece?" Tom asked, removing a box and opening it to reveal its contents.

"Oh, hell yeah!" the Master said, quickly taking a slice.

Apparently he was as much in want of real food as we were.

There is another old saying that says if all else fails, try bribery. And another that says when you are guilty, involving others will invoke their silence.

"Do I want to know how you got this?" he asked.

"No" Bob replied.

"There was something you needed sergeant?" I asked

He paused for a moment, then remembered that there was a reason for coming here.

"Oh, yeah. There is a slight problem with the SB-45, and I was wondering if one of you can come look at it" he said, then added "But no rush."

"Want another piece" Tom offered.

"Oh, hell yeah"