Well, Now We Know Why COLAs Were REALLY Reduced . . .
Apparently the funds were needed to develop a pizza MRE.
Well, I’m joking about the “funds were needed” part. But not about spending years to develop a pizza MRE.
Somehow a pizza MRE just doesn’t strike me as the Army’s most pressing need these days.
Look, I’m all for better equipment, uniforms, field rations, and the like. And improving what you have today is always something you need to look at.
But at some point, what you have today is more than good enough. Go beyond that, and IMO you’re simply wasting time and money – AKA “gilding the lily” or “goldplating”. Or making changes simply for the sake of making changes.
Doing that also wastes time and money – time and money that could be used for better things. Like, you know, maybe keeping promises and/or improving the quality of training or life for the troops. ‘Cause Lord knows DoD consistently seems to have a problem with all of those. And “not enough money” seems to always be the reason.
A pizza MRE. Hell, wouldn’t it be just as simple to put a box of mixed long-shelf-life condiment packets in each case of MREs (or one of each in each MRE) and let the troops “spice things up” as they wish?
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work"
Wow, troops still eat MREs?
All of those poor civilians contractors unable to charge $20 a plate now!
I wonder if this is going to taste anything like the original hamburger MREs…
The POG’s heart wants what the POG’s heart wants…..hell, even I want it now….
FUUUUUUUUUUCkkkk! Almost every MRE is some sort of pasta and tomato sauce! No shit: Spaghetti, chili mac, penne noodles in tomato sauce, ravioli, vegetarian crap with tomato sauce, meat in tomato sauce, I swear there must be a tomatoes in tomato sauce. And now PIZZA? A cold “day after” pizza is bad enough, but at least it was once piping hot and stringy delicious. This nightmare will start out cold, be tepid after 4 hours in an MRE heater, and turn cold again by the time you get the pouch open. Oh, and why do those fucking pouches NEVER tear open evenly? One side will perfectly follow the direction you want it to, the other will turn a full 90 degrees across the food and spill flaming hot tomato sauce all over the damn place!!
These all came about, when they keep asking Basic trainees what THEY want in a MRE, instead of veterans of the C-rat and MRE wars who know what field rats SHOULD taste like. Well no shit a bunch of kids want Chef-Boyardee, chili mac, burrito’s, enchilada’s (which are the equivalent to the original pork patty solid hockey puck of the 80’s), all kinds of candy, cake, and an ice cream substitute (which is guaranteed to give you heartburn from hell, and a vile taste in your mouth that will last at least the weekend). There is not enough Tabasco in the MRE, much less in a regular sized bottle, to burn out enough taste buds to get past that evil.
They took the “adult” foods out, and gave us the worst of Taco Bell, Olive Garden, and a truck stop.
I would kill for a sausage omelet with jalapeno cheese, or a chow mein MRE right about now.
Do them MRE things have Tobasco Sauce in ’em?
Zero: the first versions didn’t have it, but it’s been included in MREs since sometime in the 1980s. Don’t know the precise year that started.
So, SSG Medzyk – would it be fair to say you don’t think much of the idea? (smiles as he ducks behind a HESCO barrier)
Hondo #6: I asked, albeit from limited experience, because I recall that that little bitty bottle could turn just about anything (including the stuff in C-Rats dated OLD) into an edible meal. You kinda make it sound like The Army is training gourmets???
@3, Cannoncocker:
It’s pogue, not pog.
Callin’ it pog is like callin a magazine a clip, a rifle a gun, an IFV a tank or assuming that Gunnery Sgt means someone in charge of an armory.
@4, SSG Medzyk:
I recall, with horror, the day when C-Rats went out, and MREs came in.
“huh? Where’s the canned peaches?” was my very first thought.
@9: No, it’s POG.
There is a difference between poguey bait and a POG.
Tobasco went away, except in very limited meals. They substituted in a “salt-free spice pack” among other palate offenders.
….developing a pizza-MRE? Isn’t it called Hotpocket?
@11:
Nope. It’s pogue. Always been, until those who couldn’t actually be bothered to learn the tradition behind the lingo resorted to just making shit up.
Pogue is shortened from a old Tagolog slang word for whore that sounded like poguee (long e at the end).
The term poguey bait comes from the practice of using candy as a trade item to such women for their favors.
In the 20s and 30s, the term pogue became slang for weak-sucks, light in the loafers type dudes and other such.
After WW2, it became the designated tag for all non infantry, because if they weren’t pogues, they’d be grunts.
There’s already at least three different squeeze-cheeses, and many kinds of bread/crackers/soft tacos floating around in the MRE packages… just add a tomato sauce packet (or pour out the excess from one of the Italian-ish meals), and BAM– instant Lunchable pizza.
Stuff it into one of the beverage bags (maybe with bread on both sides to prevent smearing), and drop it in the heater-pouch. Serves 1. Tabasco sauce/other condiments are optional.
I still have tons of unused MRE stuff from my Army ROTC days.
Stuff I forgot to put in @13:
The term poguee for whore and poguey bait for candy comes from the USN and USMC outfits occupying the PI during and immediately after the Spanish American War.
The use of pogue to identify the weak was due to said weak-sucks being the first to get on their knees and open their mouths during long voyages, often for nothing more than the promise of a pat on the head after. Males who’d prostitute themselves to the queen bulls on board ship in exchange for preferential treatment.
The tag transferred onto all non infantry during the island fights during WW2 due to the hatred in the infantry for those who lived it much easier and had much greater access to such things as daily showers, hot chow, sleeping in cots inside tents, etc and so on, but got paid the same as the grunts doing the lion’s share of the bleeding and a far greater share of the miserable living.
Yeah, like anyone in uniform would take being called a whore as a compliment.
Nobody ever said it was a compliment. Kinda like REMF…
@9 – Grimmy – if you are in Hawaii, POG is a drink — passion fruit, orange, and guava. You can buy it by the gallon in any safeway, 7-11 or equivalent. It is the favorite drink of scuba divers and hikers. I don’t know who else drinks it, that is the only time I ever bought it. I suspect that it would be excellent if liberally doused with rum, Vodka, or torpedo juice.
#10, No Grimmy, I think very little of the idea 🙂
But….fuck it. Tomorrow is my last day in the US Army affiliate of California. 26 years done. I’m too old, fat, slow, sore, and full of “don’t give a shit anymore”. Two tours in Iraq, a few times to Germany and beyond, a lifetime of fantastic memories, and friends lost and cherished. I’ll be 53 come March, so half my life has been in uniform. I’ve had the last of the “C’s”, and the start of the MRE. Pickle suit and steel pot in Basic, to K-pot and BDU’s, to DCU’s, to ACU’s, to fuck you.
Politics has proven a disaster to the military, and the Army just ain’t getting better. We’ve got the greatest weapons, finest men and women, superior firepower from some of the world most fantastic, diabolical, and flat fucking scary war machines, and it’s all gone to shit because some faggot political whore decided that pizza MRE’s will be good for us.
I’m done sucking it up. Besides, that ruck is gawdamn heavy now 🙂
Grimmy: The Irish Gaelic phrase “Pogue ma thoin” (some of the accents don’t reproduce well here) is pronounced roughly “pogue ma hone”. It translates as “kiss my ass”. It’s entirely possible that the term “pogue’ traces it’s roots to that phrase, as a synonym for sycophant or “one who kisses asses”.
In any event, though commonly used it’s somewhat pejorative, divisive, and generally IMO foolish – especially when applied to other troops in the same combat zone. If you doubt that, just try operating without any “pogue” support for any length of time – e.g., no resupply of water, food, ammo; no MEDEVAC; no comm support; no intel support; no maintenance support; no fuel; no mail; no whatever. I doubt you’ll like the experience.
The Beef Stew MRE sucked when you were HUNGRY because there was nothing in it. Stew, potato sticks and M&Ms.
What a drag.
Why would you need a Pizza MRE?–most sizable FOB’s in Afghanistan (and Iraq for that matter) had Pizza Hut or suitable alternative (as well as Popeyes, Cinnabon, Subway, etc). A veritable smorgasbord of junk–I realize the guys on the COPS or the roads don’t get it while on patrol but everyone comes back to the FOB eventually.
oh and..
@1 I didn’t have contractors selling 20 dollar plates when I was in, or a/c in my CHU’s or any of that stuff. I would have preferred them to what we had (Gen 1 MRE’s, a shelter half and suck it up Marine).
Unless it comes with a self chilling can of beer, it just won’t be the same.
@20, Hondo:
I wasn’t attempting to justify the word, just getting my ass chapped in the usual manner over “kids these days” and the making up of stuff to cover lack of institutional knowledge.
Accuracy. It’s important to grunts. Or, at least, it used to be. (heh. About that accuracy thing. Rifles and other weapons maybe but… I did run into an actual school trained 0331 machinegunner who swore up and down that the reason the M60 was called the M60 was because it shot a .60 bullet. I’m sure he thought pogue was pog too.)
Grimmy: the “not useful” wasn’t directed specifically at you, amigo. Lots of folks denigrate their support units – until they need that support badly. Just pointing that out for all.
I still would not be surprised to find out that “pogue” as a derogatory term derives from Gaelic vice Tagalog. And if so, it’s likely got a much longer history in the US than since the Spanish-American war.
But who really knows?
Hondo – considering how much military slang came out of the SA war vice any Celtic influence, especially since it’s Marine slang… I’ll favor the Tagalog. But it’s nice to learn how to tell someone to kiss my ass in another language. (For another term with a double meaning for ass-kisser, try the Czech buzerant.)
What ever happened to good old M-2, Ham and Motherfuckers and B-2, John Wayne Biscuits? Being from the south I kinds like the H&Ms and I could always trade about anything for another ration of it. In other words I ate pretty good. Plenty enough anyway.
@27, Sparks:
I was partial to the Beef and Rocks (beef patties inter-spaced with layers of tater patty).
Sure, it was almost inedible when cold, but pressure cook that stuff in its own can and yumm.
Besides, that was the only meal in a can that could fill my gluttonous, chow-hog gut.
The head-scratchers were, imo, beans with meatballs and spaghetti beef chunks.
@25, Hondo:
I did both grunt and remf in my service. 0351 for half the 6 years, then 0231 for the rest.
Imo, a standard groundside mil contract should be 4 years. 2 years infantry, 2 years support.
Both sides of the great divide have nearly no functional concept of the daily dos and don’ts of the other side from their own. That’s bad.
It’d also “cross fertilized” the remf AO with personnel who had a bit of a clue on site and personnel protection/defense.
And, it’d give your basic infantryman a chance to pick up some marketable skills for civvie world.
That’s utopia crap, I know. But…
Since I’m giving vent to my inner utopian idiocy (all utopianism is idiocy), I’d also like to see a full stop on promotions used as simply time in grade pay raises. No one makes NCO until after their first 4 year contract is completed and they re-enlist as cadre with a specific minimum time requirement for EAS but open ended until full 20.
Then you could cycle NCOs back into the infantry that had some bit of an actual clue as to how the remf land worked to support the grunts.
Of course, specializations that require long schooling would screw that pooch a bit. Screw it. Ain’t nothing perfect.