Police here have arrested 51 people for illegally selling MREs, which the Strategy Page finds amusing:
June 8, 2009: South Korean police recently arrested 51 people for illegally selling American military rations (MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat). No Americans were arrested because, well, the G.I.’s didn’t exactly sell the MREs to the South Korea civilians. The facts are these;
U.S. troops are frequently out on “field exercises” (where a unit moves out into the countryside as they would in wartime.) During these exercises, the troops often eat a lot of MREs. When the troops move on, they leave trash behind, including uneaten MREs. Even though South Korea is pretty prosperous, for over half a century, rural Koreans have been in the custom of cleaning up areas where U.S. troops camped out, recycling anything useful they could find. In the past, the troops would purposely leave behind whatever they could get away with, in the knowledge that the locals would benefit from it.
[...]
The “stolen” MREs were sold in shops and flea markets. South Koreans who like to hunt or go camping (both are popular activities, because much of eastern South Korea is mountainous forests where, until the 1960s, Amur tigers roamed wild) like to pack MREs, which were originally designed to this. Many Koreans actually like the MREs, or at least some of them. While American fast food is common in South Korea, the MREs contain dishes familiar to Americans, but generally unknown in South Korea. Thus MREs are seen as exotic foreign cuisine.
Read the rest on your own.
(HT to reader)
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I take it that all the foreign goods at the 수입상가 at Namdaemun and all of the import markets in Itaewon must have been “recovered” from the field during training exercises as well?
I call bullshit.
Back when, I was stationed with a Korean unit on the DMZ for a month. We made the C-RATs the US Army had given me edible with additions of Korean food, but nothing could make the scrambled eggs and ham tasty or even palatable – even the camp dogs avoided that one.
MREs can be had at the Haddon Market in Hannam.
Spam goes well with kimchi… spam goes well with rice… and MREs aren’t bad when you dump that packet of tabasco into it…
Dumpster diving at the American military base… a Korean tradition!
http://community.roughguides.com/planning/journalEntryFreeForm.asp?JournalID=54357&EntryID=26361&n=Budaechigae%3A++The+Best+Dish+That+Nobody+Knows
Canadians apparently like it too. Got a few slabs with my omlette at the Puffin Cafe recently. Hadn’t had any since sometime in the late ’50s. Back when my Dad drank real rye and also smoked three packs of Luckys a day. Dreadful stuff.
MREs (meals rejected by Ethiopians — yeah, yeah — actually they aren’t bad when varied with a real cooked meal every now and then) these days require the ability to read instructions in English or an introduction to the system from someone who understands those directions. Historically rations have been most palatable when heated. This frequently required flame and unfortunately flame compromises positions.
MREs did not originally, but now contain blue tablets, which when combined with water, can be used to heat the meals.
On more than one occasion unsupervised Afghans attempted to eat these blue tablets with unfortunate results.
If Koreans cherish Spam, why would they not like MREs.
This is has a novelty factor of the astronauts’ packed meals you get from NASA/science museum etc (including those cool freeze-dried ice cream), or airplane meals(before air travel became an everyday thing), mixed with a tinge of nostalgia for the “days back when”. They could sell them legally in a US Army base themed museum or something, if such exists.
Canadians apparently like it too. Got a few slabs with my omlette at the Puffin Cafe recently. Hadn’t had any since sometime in the late ’50s. Back when my Dad drank real rye and also smoked three packs of Luckys a day. Dreadful stuff.
i had breakfast at the puffin-once. that’s a god-awful place.
not to drive this thread nostalgic, but i remember dad cooking up scrapple. that’s about as bad as it gets-fat fried in more fat.
someone should do an anthropological study on the business culture inside U.S. military bases in other countries. i remember in the nineties that the korean laundry detail had quite the racket going hiring new employees. they required a minimum $20,000 to get a job and ran it like the mob.
MRE’s are not left behind in the field and trash is cleaned up. The ajummas that work in the field tents trade food liky cheesy ramyon for MRE’s. Soldiers are not supposed to do this any more and my unit strictly enforced this but I’m sure it is still going on. However, the MRE’s the ajummas get from this is no where near the number of MRE’s pilfered from USFK from the dining and distribution facilities.
The police crackdown found that many of the MRE’s are expired meaning that they did not come from the field but instead from dining and distribution facilities where the expired MRE’s should have been properly disposed of. It is similar to when a bunch of AAFES workers were arrested for selling expired beer that was supposed to be disposed of to bar owners out in the ville.
Also the Koreans that eat these MRE’s are mostly fishermen and campers because of how easy they are to pack and eat. Other Koreans I know just like many non-military civilians back in the US wanted to try and MRE just to see what it tastes like. I don’t know of any Korean that thinks of them as an exotic foreign cuisine.
@7
It is not just Afgans who can’t read, while in basic we had this woman in her mid-thirties, from the inner city who never passed up the chance to assert that she had a “masters degree” (which I later found out to be in “Social Work”) and that the only reason she had joined the Army was to pay for her student loans. One day I turned around to see her shovelling chunks of her Country Captain Chicken into the white bubbling chemical froth of the heating packet. Of course we intervened…
Koreans will black market anything that says USA. I can shit in a bag..call it chocolate and they will buy it! HAHAHA.
Look for breaking news soon. Korean commisary worker busted selling $17000 of meat…I bet it was ribs. Stay tuned.
Ugh more insulting Strategerypage bullshit. Thanks for providing a corrective input GI Korea.
#9 “i remember in the nineties that the korean laundry detail had quite the racket going hiring new employees. they required a minimum $20,000 to get a job and ran it like the mob.”
That still goes on in Korea. A few years ago when the Taco Bell opened on base at Camp Walker, a Korean friend of mine tried to get a job there. She was told that for 10 million won she’d be hired.
Back to the thread…..why would anyone be arrested for selling garbage the Army left behind? If the Army didn’t want the MRE’s and threw them away, what’s the big idea of some enterprising Korean sells them?
It is an American problem, not a Korean problem. Folks in the military, folks in the government who have access to government materials invariably view them as THEIR freebies, dispose of them freely and then try to turn a buck on disposal.
You can’t just toss government-purchased items into the trash. There are very formalized ways of the disposing of them especially when they are capable of a long life and continued value. There was to be a disinterested party who judges the items to no longer be of value to the US government and figures out how they ought to be sold. This should not be that startling a revelation. If MREs with expiration dates are sold, the government gets the proceeds, not Sgt. Bilko.
On the other hand, in Taiwan there used to be a bumboat operation run by a Chinese gal, who with her merry band would paint your entire ship for your garbage. There were never any complaints either way. Essentially the USN (read the government) got the proceeds so everything was fine.
Now during my days in An Xuyen Province on the Asian Riviera, I was billeted with the Army, and I had a sneaky suspicion that certain NCO’s were diverting food before it ever got to their American GI customers At this compound we were eating peanutbutter casseroles while fifteen miles south the Navy was eating lobster.
For more on MREs: http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/06/11/the-world-of-mres/
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