[Sca-cooks] Mules WAS [Fwd: [Fwd: Yeah so?]] OT OOP

[Siegfried Heydrich]

    I dunno, we were in the field on a long range patrol when we discovered
that the C-rats we had were from 1952 - and this was in '71. They had the
nutritional value (and taste) of library paste. The lima beans had clearly
mutated . . .We tossed 'em and lived off the land.
    Feeding armies in the field has always been regarded as a pestilence by
farmers & peasants in the area. An army could scour the countryside as
thoroughly as locusts, and if the were on a punitive mission, they stole
what wasn't nailed down (or couldn't be pried up) and destroyed the rest.
Poisoned wells, burnt fields, razed orchards & vineyards, destroyed bridges,
chopped the feet off the peasantry, etc.
    It was either that, or be totally dependent on your all too tenuous
lines of supply. The development of national, professional armies has
changed that a lot, but the locals still get thumped.

    Sieggy

----- Original Message -----
>
> ObFood:  I wonder if any of the rations from the conflict in Vietnam
> are still edible.  This, of course, assumes they were edible in the
> first place.  I wonder about large period armies and what methods they
> used to feed such numbers.  I guess one could always forage (pillage)
> as you went along.  Seems there would have been a more organized
> system, though.