Fortunately I only had to eat C-rations twice. And that was because I
only had two cans to eat.  Went through the Air Force Cool School  -
Arctic Survival Training out of Eilsen AFB, AK. Spent 10 days out at
35-45 below zero. Had to live the 10 days on the two cans of C-rations.
Did it too, but lost 25-30 lbs that one week in those cold temperatures.
Thanks to The Maker for Bates Bunny Boots.  Best training I ever got for
living in Alaska. Did'ja know you can scrape the snow, ice and tundra
grass away at 35 below zero, expose bare earth and actually get heat
from the earth? BTDT, heated my little survival snowhouse house I built
right up to about  zero inside. Quite toasty really. I survived quite
well. The earth heat thing is a relativity issue. You can get heat from
sitting on a block of  ice from the ice house if the outside air is
colder that the ice itself. But truly, if the ground is exposed, you do
get heat.

BTW, the C-rations were good -- cause I didn't get to eat but tiny
little bits at a time. Had to stretch it out, so I was hungry all the
time. Funny how that hunger can even make s**t taste good if you have
salt for it.

Cold Rules - 1)Don't eat snow, 2) Don't eat yellow snow, 3) melt snow
for drinking water - eating snow can cost you so many btus just to melt
it in your moouth you can get started towards hypothermia. 4) Stay
Clean, wash up. Good trick to bathe at those temps but can be done. Oil
from your skin gets into your clothes and they lose their insulating
qualities. After three days you will begin to suffer the consequences of
not keeping clean.

Yep, me and C-rations --- we were friends!

John Rodgers
88 GL Driver

Joel Walker wrote:

>
> hmph. you guys don't know how good you had it. in 1968-1970, we were
> eating c-rations. in cans. heavy as hell and no heating stuff came
> with it. oh, we got cigarettes and toilet paper (John Wayne paper ...
> :) and chocolate (well ... sorta. it LOOKED like chocolate).
> i kinda actually like pork slices. we had one guy in our unit that
> loved ham and lima beans (known to most of us as 'ham and mutha-*****'
> because of the gastric distress it caused). he would actually trade
> his fruit cocktail cans for the stuff. go figure.
>
> good ol' days? not from the way i see it. ;)
>
> unca joel
>
>