Ah, the venerable P38, one of the finest examples of "appropriate technology" that should be used today instead of the $100 devices we insist on. Light, cheap, effective, able to be made from recycled materials, able to be recycled, cheap and non-violent to make, very small carbon footprint, can be made by hand. You could cut open a pant leg, clean your nails, and clear a jammed charging lever with those, besides opening a can. Properly used, most cans disposed of in about 2 minutes. Coffee cans would give you wrist cramps, though, so the bayonet worked quicker. (You didn't risk your own K-Bar on metal cans, you used the gummint's).

I'd love to put the vulgar, humorous, but so Marine-like "real" names of those C-rats on this forum, but I'm 100% sure they'd be censored, immediately.

Like many Marines, I have forgotten the real names of C-rat meals, and only know them by their given names. Some of the worst peanut butter known to mankind, often refused even by the hungry children of third world countries. The older meals still had 4 cigarettes in them, but they disappeared quickly in my era. The ones above had coffee and hot chocolate that could not be duplicated for "funny" taste; we used to sit around and try to guess the "filler" used. Most popular choices were bone meal and powdered fish food. Probably wrong, but appropriate for the aftertastes.

Not so fond memories, but I've gratefully lived on those for months at a time. Unsupported small units; those are all we had. When I got out, I considered taking a small plot out on the family farm, and living there in a tent for 6 months while I built my cabin. The prospect of living on C-rats again, for months, again, was one reason I nixed the idea. My body still shivers at the idea of emptying those boxes of all but the cans of food and going on LRPs. Sort of a Pavlov effect, but different.

I'd also surmise that millions of people have been sheltered, albeit for short term increments, by the wax-covered cases these meals came in. You could make a chest of drawers with them and some duct tape, and I saw many a hootch completely covered, layer by layer, with those cases, housing families out of the rain.

Sigh. Like C-rats, the UO-8, and the '82 Honda Civic, many of the best ideas are behind us.