Without Googling m, how many vets remember the name of these and got your meals from one???

[GFB]

They flew us out Thanksgiving dinner in mermites in 2003 to the middle nowhere. It was a gourmet feast relatively. Cold t-rates in winter was my least favorite fine dining experience.

 

[Bypass]

Mermite cans.
In Nam we had one small signal detachment on a radio intercept camp, and once a day we'd load up a hot meal for them and run it out by jeep.
I was a company cook on a combat base. I'm very familiar with those. And M1937 field stoves, which ran on gasoline and compressed air.

My Dad was ASA in Vietnam was this the patch they wore at the radio intercept camp?

 

[Ex313]

That was usually how I got my lunch (and sometimes Dinner) when I was in The Air Force. The food was damn good too.
In Boy Scouts, they called them Heater Stacks.
Nothing but pleasant memories for those things.

 

[GodBlessTheUSA]

Good memories of Mermites.

Bad memory of T-rats: the first time our mess section got them for the full company, they misread the label and thought there were divided sections in each big tin. So instead of the entree or chicken ala king, and the side of Mac and cheese, and the dessert of chocolate pudding, each firing platoon got one can, the entree, the side, or, for my platoon, the dessert.

I'll be honest, the younger guys were excited about 5 pounds of chocolate pudding.

I sent a driver and an NCO into the local village bakery and meatzgerie.

We never had T-rats again.

 

[GAK9]

My Dad was ASA in Vietnam was this the patch they wore at the radio intercept camp?

That patch is for the Army Security Agency Signal Intelligence. Semper Vigilis (Always Vigilant). US Army Intelligence and Security Command.

​

Current logo and patch

 

[BlackJackAce]

The companion to this following the chow was cleaning your mess kit in the galvanized trash cans in boiling water with immersion heaters. I can remember a couple times when a mess guy or K.P. would light the things with too much fuel vapor built up and blow the chimneys off. Loud bang and sheet metal projectile. INCOMING!

 

[Retired Army]

My Dad was ASA in Vietnam was this the patch they wore at the radio intercept camp?

I was a career intel warrant. We called it the Lightning Fast Chicken. Not sure why but it’d been around a while.

 

[Retired Army]

That patch is for the Army Security Agency Signal Intelligence. Semper Vigilis (Always Vigilant). US Army Intelligence and Security Command.

​

Current logo and patch
View attachment 5707363 View attachment 5707370

Wore these as well.

 

[Retired Army]

In the 27 years I spent in the Army, I do seem to remember eating a meal or two out of them. Never used a paper plate though, I usually had a "mess kit", y'all remember those?

Mess kit and shaving and washing up using my steel pot filled with water lol. Ah, to be young again.

 

[Bear44]

They flew us out Thanksgiving dinner in mermites in 2003 to the middle nowhere. It was a gourmet feast relatively. Cold t-rates in winter was my least favorite fine dining experience.

I was always very happy when I saw them bring these out.