Meals In Iraq Or MRE's

Military meals in Iraq, whether in battle or the field, are popularly known as MRE's or meals ready to eat. MRE's come in a thin plastic pouch.

They contain a main course, vegetable, bread or crackers, dessert, packets of sugar, coffee, cream, hot chocolate, salt (but no pepper), and matches.

They also come with toilet paper because everything that goes in must come out. Thoughtful, right?

The outer plastic on the MRE has a notch to tear it open. This would lead you to believe that all you have to do is tear the pouch open at the notch, right?

Wrong! Do not even bother trying. Find a knife. I am fairly strong and I have not yet been able to open an MRE without a knife.

The coffee in the MRE is really bad--one packet of sugar does not take away the bitterness. We usually mix the coffee, cream, and sugar with the hot chocolate and make a mocha drink which is much more tolerable. And you thought Starbucks invented flavored coffees! American GI's were making them long before that.

The MRE has 3500 calories in it. Wow! In most cases, a lot of the food gets thrown away instead of eaten. These meals are loaded with carbs to provide energy for battle, but the taste is something to be desired.

MRE's come in 24 different but tasteless varieties. Out in the desert, they really all taste like sand because there is so much sand around.

My favorite is the enchilada, with the burrito coming in as a close second. MRE's are bland but they are better than no meals in Iraq.

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