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Originally posted by Latka:
HAHAHAHAHAHA... I'm glad I had just swallowed a bite of my lunch when I read that, 'cause I would have sent food flying!

Unfortunately, we never had anything as cool as a tank or APC to heat our food in. I was an MP / K-9 handler (room empties out...). When I was in the California Guard, I was with a Mech. Inf unit. Know the armory from where the tank got stolen and driven around San Diego? That one. Glad I wasn't associated with anything from there at that point!

I was never as cold as I was in the Guard though. Geez... freezin' our butts off at Camp Pendleton in February during one of those Friday - Sunday "events". I sure have some good memories and funny stories from my time in the service though!

Speaking of the P-38s, those things were great. I had one on my dog tag chain at my Dad's suggestion (an old LTC Arty guy from the Army), ...well, until I fell and poked myself in the chest with it!

-Andy
(Not terribly bright OR coordinated)

Andy,
You were a dog handler. Did you ever have any rats even the dog wouldn't eat?

troopie

(Who swears there were real rats in his rat pack.)

Hi Major Ed:

Gotta be the P-38. But as a former groundpounder with BLT 1/3, my favs were...

Your entrenching tool. (carried that stupid thing everywhere)
Marine K-Bar.
Cammo cover.
4 canteens.
Waterproof matches from my kid sister.
Tabasco Sauce for cookin
C-4 for a good fire
Worn jungle boots
A recon brimmed hat.
and a M-60 with three cherries to carry your ammo.

Bruce
Semper Fi

Duct tape, definitely. Entire armies are being held together with that stuff.

After reading a Dilbert episode however I am also inclined to say:

Officers.

Great invention to keep bumbling fools out of the production process

You were a dog handler. Did you ever have any rats even the dog wouldn't eat?

I had what we called a "Twinkie Dog". You were safe from attack unless you had a twinkie strapped to your leg, and then your only danger was being licked for 30 minutes.

He would fetch coconuts though. (I was here in Hawai'i when I was in the service)... great little tool to pick up women on the beach. Then again, they were like 99% Military Wives already! Grrrrr.

-Andy

Now, why is everyone badmouthing the Armyland Happy Meal (MRE). I'm one of those rare individuals who actually liked the chicken a-la king, so I was usually in a good position during the barganing phase of the meal.

I don't have any experience with American rations, but I can tell you that the best thing I ever had in the Canadian reserves in 1980 was canned cooked bacon slices. Um,mm, good! Just heat and serve. But the absolute worst stuff was canned ham and eggs. My German shepherd wouldn't eat them if he was starving. Another good thing in Canadian rat-packs was cheeze whiz in a toothpaste tube. Just squeeze it onto your rat-pack crackers and stick them together. Also had strawberry jam in toothpaste tubes.

The entrenchment tool?? The trenches, desert, and steppes, encompassing two world wars it mamed and saved how many???

The portable field Kitchen was the most important weapons ever invented!

I made some good deals in '88 during the last major NATO exercise in Europe. Could have been a REFORGER, anyway, I found out that americans are practically willing to sell their mom for Dutch MRE 's.

At the end of that exercise I was wondering how all those GI's were going to explain their missing equipment

I hope they realized that while they got their ass in trouble for it, they made a 6 year boy's life, with a terminal form of brain cancer, wonderful for just a year. After that year the little man had died, but I am still having good memories of seeing him running around with a helmet on his head that covered most part of his face.

I think the most inportant and most widely used invention is ammo that is packed in one piece with bullet and gun powder in one piece. That was a revolution as the loading time degreased rapidly and the firepower of on e soldier increased heavily. Also made self loading weapons possible.

And of all the the tipes of those ammo the 7,62mm short ammo for AK-47 and its derivates is probably the most widely used one. Or the 9mm round for SMG's.

And allmost forgot. It can be argued that the decline in Roman army started when they started to pay the soldiers. They were not a pro army when they had their most important battles and also the officers did not get any sallary. So it happened that while the leader of the army was glorious his personal finances were going down the drain.

If I remember right already Machiavelli wrote that there was nothing worse than professional army. Real people's army was much more effective and he had some concrete evidence beginning from the Romans to back that oppinion.

Originally posted by Rhodan:

At the end of that exercise I was wondering how all those GI's were going to explain their missing equipment

"Geez, Sargeant Wilson, I just set it down for a second, then when I bent down to tie my boot, one of those kids from the village grabbed it and ran."