Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Question
[T]here was a photo in the Time Magazine ... of American soldiers buying cooked food off Iraqis. Have you done this? Where do you usually eat? Mess tent? MRE's? You mentioned rest camps (I think...) in the blog - do you eat MRE's, say, for a week while deployed at a satellite camp, then in to a rest camp for a weekend with hot food, or some such arrangement?
The article stated that the troops preferred fresh food (obviously) to MRE's - I remember this myself from my time in the SADF - I know just how boring and bland MRE's (we called them "ratpacks" - "rations packages") get after a week or even less.
My actual questions are is this actually permitted? Or sensible? We were sometimes offered food when on patrol here which I personally never ate or even smelled at - some of the areas we patrolled in were not necessarily friendly to the Defence Forces and it struck me as the perfect way to get rid of a few troops - what is easier than to poison some food and sell it to them?
...
Come to think of it, how does your rationing (i.e. food supply) work? I am guessing that Iraqi civilians are semi-starving and there is very little food available (but enough to be sold to troops by civilians?) even if you have money - so the US Army must be self sufficient in this?
Answer
When we were in Falluja, and during the first few weeks here in the I Zone, we ate two MRE's a day. We return to our FOB every day/night after our mission, and every FOB has food prepared on site or, in our current situation shipped from a commissary in insulated containers, so we have always had it good.
The situation you suggest is like what the Marines had in Falluja. They would eat nothing but MRE's, and whatever they bought at the PX, on their week long rotations. The just had boxes of MRE's and water next to the revetments in which they slept on the ground with feral dogs. Then for a week they would go back to the FOB. They wouldn't get to relax for a week. There was skills training - including knife fighting, vehicle and weapons maintenance, and physical fitness training.
Lately, we've been getting every meal from a DFAC, which is usually built from a bunch of trailers put together. Where we are now, it's in a permanent building rumored to have been a morgue during the last administration. Even if we have to be out on a mission for the whole day, we have a truck bring us chow, many times from the Al Rasheed. Lane Filler's Desert Dairies series has an article titled, like, "Would you Like Some More Bologna with Your Bologna?" which covers some of what chow is like.
Food supply and preparation is contracted to KBR and other companies. Pretty regularly, we get quality, name brand, products: V8 vegetable juice, Coca Cola soft drinks, Kellogg's cereal, Pop Tart toaster pastries, Power Bar energy bars, Gatorade drink mix, and my favorite, Otis Spunkmier's chocolate, chocolate chip cookies, though they've only had the oatmeal, raisin of late. Milk and ice cream are provided by the Danish Dairy of Kuwait. There's no Madison Avenue on these labels. Whole milk is called 'Full Fat' and 2% is 'Half Cream'. Just like in the US, the taste of Coke varies a lot by origin. The DFAC serves Coke with Arabic writing on it, which is referred to as Hajji Coke. There is also German Coke, Turkish Coke, and American Coke available at the PX and Iraqi stores. To me, Turkish Coke tastes the best.
We can eat at Iraqi restaurants, but we are strongly advised not to. Our command estimates that 50-100 service members per week are becoming ill due to eating food not prepared by US authorized facilities. On our FOB, theres a restaurant which sells mostly chicken and kabobs and has fresh vegetables that are much more appetizing than what we get at the DFAC.
Iraqis seem to eat well; rarely have I seen anyone skinny. I've only seen one malnourished child since I've been here. It was outside the PX, here in the I Zone. I didn't know what to do; I think next time, I'll see if we can go to the hospital and inquire if we can bring them in.
[T]here was a photo in the Time Magazine ... of American soldiers buying cooked food off Iraqis. Have you done this? Where do you usually eat? Mess tent? MRE's? You mentioned rest camps (I think...) in the blog - do you eat MRE's, say, for a week while deployed at a satellite camp, then in to a rest camp for a weekend with hot food, or some such arrangement?
The article stated that the troops preferred fresh food (obviously) to MRE's - I remember this myself from my time in the SADF - I know just how boring and bland MRE's (we called them "ratpacks" - "rations packages") get after a week or even less.
My actual questions are is this actually permitted? Or sensible? We were sometimes offered food when on patrol here which I personally never ate or even smelled at - some of the areas we patrolled in were not necessarily friendly to the Defence Forces and it struck me as the perfect way to get rid of a few troops - what is easier than to poison some food and sell it to them?
...
Come to think of it, how does your rationing (i.e. food supply) work? I am guessing that Iraqi civilians are semi-starving and there is very little food available (but enough to be sold to troops by civilians?) even if you have money - so the US Army must be self sufficient in this?
Answer
When we were in Falluja, and during the first few weeks here in the I Zone, we ate two MRE's a day. We return to our FOB every day/night after our mission, and every FOB has food prepared on site or, in our current situation shipped from a commissary in insulated containers, so we have always had it good.
The situation you suggest is like what the Marines had in Falluja. They would eat nothing but MRE's, and whatever they bought at the PX, on their week long rotations. The just had boxes of MRE's and water next to the revetments in which they slept on the ground with feral dogs. Then for a week they would go back to the FOB. They wouldn't get to relax for a week. There was skills training - including knife fighting, vehicle and weapons maintenance, and physical fitness training.
Lately, we've been getting every meal from a DFAC, which is usually built from a bunch of trailers put together. Where we are now, it's in a permanent building rumored to have been a morgue during the last administration. Even if we have to be out on a mission for the whole day, we have a truck bring us chow, many times from the Al Rasheed. Lane Filler's Desert Dairies series has an article titled, like, "Would you Like Some More Bologna with Your Bologna?" which covers some of what chow is like.
Food supply and preparation is contracted to KBR and other companies. Pretty regularly, we get quality, name brand, products: V8 vegetable juice, Coca Cola soft drinks, Kellogg's cereal, Pop Tart toaster pastries, Power Bar energy bars, Gatorade drink mix, and my favorite, Otis Spunkmier's chocolate, chocolate chip cookies, though they've only had the oatmeal, raisin of late. Milk and ice cream are provided by the Danish Dairy of Kuwait. There's no Madison Avenue on these labels. Whole milk is called 'Full Fat' and 2% is 'Half Cream'. Just like in the US, the taste of Coke varies a lot by origin. The DFAC serves Coke with Arabic writing on it, which is referred to as Hajji Coke. There is also German Coke, Turkish Coke, and American Coke available at the PX and Iraqi stores. To me, Turkish Coke tastes the best.
We can eat at Iraqi restaurants, but we are strongly advised not to. Our command estimates that 50-100 service members per week are becoming ill due to eating food not prepared by US authorized facilities. On our FOB, theres a restaurant which sells mostly chicken and kabobs and has fresh vegetables that are much more appetizing than what we get at the DFAC.
Iraqis seem to eat well; rarely have I seen anyone skinny. I've only seen one malnourished child since I've been here. It was outside the PX, here in the I Zone. I didn't know what to do; I think next time, I'll see if we can go to the hospital and inquire if we can bring them in.
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