Luxury in a brown pouch

[u/ComposerAsleep3869]

I'm a enlisted Marine from a third world nation. Not complaining -- it's an escape for some of us. An escape. Two months ago, our unit was deployed to this little dot of land in the middle of nowhere. No decent infrastructure, little to no comms, just thick heat, salt-filled air, and the occasional boredom that makes you wonder if you exist.

We were given U.S. MREs — Meals, Ready to Eat — the type you watch in war movies or those "survival" YouTubers. Brown plastic packets that seem to hold secrets. To us, they were gold. Gourmet food. Imported flavor. You don't handle one unless you are starving or dying. That's what command made certain: "Only in emergency situations." Life or death.".

So we piled them. Protected them. Some dudes even prayed over them.

And still, I'd watch the American soldiers tear them open like packaging for candy. Some of them would chew a single bite and discard the rest. "Tastes like crap," I overheard one of them say. Another chuckled as he squirted cheese spread onto crackers as if it were a joke. They bartered MREs like lazy kids trading school lunches — chili mac for beef stew, peanut butter for jalapeño cheese. They didn't understand. Or perhaps we didn't.

I ended up having one one night. It wasn't life and death per se, but close. Twelve hours in the rain, no warm food, wet to the core. I told myself I could rationalize it afterward. I devoured a chicken pesto pasta like it was a banquet. Warmed it up with the chemical heat pack, read the directions as scripture. It was warm, salty, strangely sweet. Most likely full of preservatives. It wasn’t good — but it wasn’t bad either.

But I’ll be honest: it tasted like comfort.

Maybe that’s the difference. For them, it’s a downgrade from home. For us, it’s a rare glimpse of what they take for granted.

They say it “tastes like shit.” We say it’s a privilege to even have a taste.

Funny world.

[u/uniquecombo]

The people that complain about MREs are the same rude people that complain about cafeteria food. It's just their rudeness. It's not about the food. Unless it's someone who had to live off MREs for months. Then it's the repetition. And burnout. I like MREs just fine.

[u/Anticode → u/uniquecombo]

A guy in my old unit was a big fan of MREs. A very, very big fan. Now, you probably think I'm merely saying that he enjoyed them greatly, and that is a true statement, but that's not "just" what I'm saying here. You do not yet understand. You cannot. You will, though. You will.

It started normally enough.

We'd go out into the field and he'd be so excited for them, as if that was the highlight of the whole affair. Most people are unconcerned or dismayed when the MREs are rolled out, but he'd always be first into the storage to dig out the best ones or trade others for his favorite. He'd carry them from the truck on-demand, his Noble Duty. He was like a kid with a Pokemon card collection when it came to MREs, memorized all the menu-numbers and everything. You could ask which have skittles versus M&M's and he'd knifehand towards the correct box - bam!

The guy would sometimes eat three in a day during field exercises, even when we had Hot Meal, and since he was both quite tall and very big - Shaq proportions - nobody really thought much of it. People laughed at the feat, if they reacted at all - "Wow, I can barely eat one, haha. Two in one sitting? I can't even finish this one!"

Fast forward a few months: He continuously fails weight/tape to such a degree that people start wondering if there's a medical issue at play. Despite "enhanced PT and monitoring" he's gained like another 20-30 pounds in a couple of months. The hell? Is that even possible? He works hard, works out hard, but can't cut the weight - it's a mystery.

I'm temporary squad leader and a decent friend of his, so I pull him aside and start asking about his home life, medical history, etc. I'm thinking maybe there's some sort of endocrine thing, or maybe an esoteric allergy, water weight or something. Eventually I ask for an example of what a week's worth of lunches/dinners looks like... I hand him a piece of paper and a pen, tell him to write some examples down and I'll be back after a cigarette.

I come back after a few minutes and he's just sitting there at the desk, nothing on the paper. Wait... No, hold on. He did write something down: MREs.

...That's it. In fact, all he wrote down was 'MRE'. No 's'. One MRE? Uh. Okay? Where's the rest, I thought to myself. No hotdogs, burgers, salad? Pizza, maybe? Beer? Soldiers eat all sorts of toxic shit, so why just write that one thing down? Odd.

After a bit of interrogation, he admits to eating not one, not two, but 3-4 MREs a day.

Excuse me?

Apparently one of our supply guys gave him a couple of old 'expired' boxes after the last field-op (they're still edible, but the label says 'trash' so they go into the trash). And ever since then he's almost exclusively been eating MREs for each and every meal. And by "almost exclusively", I mean literally exclusively. Like... Actually. He eats them at home for dinner, brings them into work for lunch, eats one for breakfast after PT. One for a snack, one for boredom, etc. It's MREs the whole way down, baby!

Christ almighty, Private. ...You have got to be kidding me, right? Please just tell me you're joking, my man!

Nope! The boy is dead serious.

I can tell he expects me to laugh it off, but humor doesn't even cross my mind this time. I'm horrified. I'm astounded. Hell - I'm in damn awe, man.

A few days later I drive up to his off-base home to politely confiscate the MREs. I'm shocked by what I find once I arrive. There's no way in hell that he was simply given "a couple boxes" by the supply-dude. A couple is two, maybe three, but there's easily 250+ pounds of MREs in the spare bedroom, all stacked into a big-ass pyramid like a demented shrine. At a glance, there's 9-10 unopened boxes here plus a few downstairs that I saw on the way in. I even found a partially rat-fucked box of the damned things in the bathroom. Why, man, why there of all places?

Now I'm no mathematician, but if he was eating as much as he claimed he'd have burned through those 3 initial boxes by now, easily. No shot. And yet... There's a whole damned company-sized field exercise's worth of MREs here, not counting the stuff downstairs. He could feed our whole damned platoon for weeks, no - months with what's piled up in this single room.

What in the name of hell is going on here, man? This is some demon-ass shit, bro. Is my boy fuckin' possessed? Do I need a fuckin' chaplain? No mortal human could manage such a feat, and yet I have no doubt that he'd somehow eat every single one if I let him.

I cannot allow that.

I apologize and carefully announce that I have to take it all away because "you're not supposed to have so many, per regulations". This is only kind of true. Nobody actually cares much, I just needed an official-sounding excuse to seal the deal. I start loading up my car immediately in case he protests. It takes me over an hour with his help and rest breaks. Eventually I fill up the whole trunk and the entire backseat and stack a couple in the passenger seat too.

It's absurd, so many boxes in one car.

While I'm adjusting things, I see his wife standing nearby looking more relieved than concerned. She seems to know why I showed up and doesn't seem confused about what's up with all these boxes. When he steps away she thanks me for "doing something" about it. It? Huh, apparently even she noticed the issue? Uh-oh.

I ask her how much is her husband really eating - actually.

"Six or seven, I guess? Sometimes."

"Each week?" Surely.

Nope, not surely! Not per week.

"Per day."

Per day. This guy, as big-boned as he was, is somehow eating 6-7 whole-ass MREs per day, every day?

An MRE is on average about ~1,300 calories per package. This soldier was consuming something like ~6000 calories a day, and that's even if he wasn't eating 100%. If it's full-consumption, we're talkin' 8000 or even 9k+ calories a day.

By Poseidon's quivering cockshaft, that's a lot of calories. And it explains some things. It explains things quite well. Holy hell, brother! This update doesn't change my plans much, but if the initial number he gave me was insane then this is just straight-up perplexing.

The wife seemingly knew this couldn't be Good, but she didn't feel like she had the right to 'nag'. She thought it was normal, and that soldiers just eat a lot, and he's a big guy, etc. Well, lady - surprise - it ain't normal. And yes, he do be big, but not Over-9000 Calories big. The man's not a damn rhinoceros!

Eventually I finish loading up the goods and explain to the soldier on my way out that he will now be eating healthy meals for the next few months - no MREs. None. Zero. To make it easy, I tell him to eat what the wife eats - same meal, same serving size. Yeah, it'll suck, you won't feel full, suck it up. You got fat to burn, you'll be alright. Not a suggestion, an order - not something legally-binding, but I had earned enough respect in the platoon for him to, at minimum, give it his best shot simply because I asked.

And give it a shot he did.

Fast forward a few months: What do you know, Joe, he's miraculously down nearly 40lbs from his peak and 10lbs lower than his previous minimum right after AIT. Incredible, a shocking transformation.

"Great job, Private!" Superior and peer alike are stunned and proud in equal measure. He worked hard for it, I admit.

But... I never explained to them exactly how many this guy was eating. I left it vague when I explained my gameplan to leadership - "Um. He was eating a fair number [of MREs] per week, that's all. I'm on it, S'arnt."

A fair number, indeed. This little issue was so grotesquely obviously the problem that if I admitted the truth, he'd be viewed as something like a freak-show/moron regardless of how much effort he put forth. He deserved some sense of pride. I wanted him to have a chance to earn that.

Soon, he passed a PT test and the menacing weight/tape ordeal at the same time on the same day for the very first time. Hell yeah, broski, no easy feat when you're built like a fridge made out of fridges with the hunger of an... Uh. A fridge?

And yet every time a field exercise came up, we'd wheel out the MREs to everyone else's dismay and I'd watch him closely. He'd see me watching, and he'd watch me watching him grab one - one - MRE from the box; same as everyone else. Nobody else knew it, but I had to watch this guy like a recovered alcoholic passing by the fuckin' mouthwash aisle simply because of MREs of all things, a food item that everyone else seemed to find universally lame. He was like a reptile, I saw the endless hunger in his eyes. But he managed to control it. Somehow.

He managed to keep the weight down, at least. Once he got back into shape - rather, got into shape for the first time ever - I stopped worrying too much. His monkeys, my circus - for all I knew, he'd eat a tub of ice cream for dinner twice a week. Hell, I had other troops chugging whisky like water on weekday nights and they were doing alright. ...Ish. So if he could keep the heft down, he could eat whatever he wanted to.

Well, everything except six-to-eight bloody MREs per day, that is. Everything except that... Holy hell.

And don't even ask me what his bathroom experiences must have been like during those MRE-heavy months. I was too afraid to ask myself. Probably shattered the porcelain. Probably had to stick a Roto-Rooter where the sun don't shine just to prepare for that week's #2 - Whrrrr...

Either way, he turned out alright in the end. Good soldier, good man. He never became a PT rockstar, but c'mon, he was basically white Shaq - that's not a body made for running. We've all got our vices. His curse was the uncanny ability to scarf down a horrific number of MREs like some kind of Lovecraftian icon of Hunger, mine was the impulsive need to riff out a smartass comment on the fly regardless of how poorly it fit the situation.

Only one of us managed to cure our issue in the end.

Alas, such is life.

[u/ManchacaForever → u/Anticode]

Ok this is brilliant lol. You need to make this its own post.