V E TE R AN S AFFAI R S & M I LITARY M E D I CI N E O UTLO O K
COMBAT NUTRITION Feeding the Troops – Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
n THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT Napoleon Bonaparte, whose Grand Army conquered much of Europe in the early 19th century, ever said or wrote the words now widely attributed to him: “An army marches on its stomach.” But in the winter of 1812, during his disastrous invasion of their country, the Russians destroyed much of the food, provisions, and shelter the Grand Army might have used to survive, administering to Napoleon a brutal lesson about the importance of feeding an army. About 1 of every 6 French soldiers survived the campaign. American military history has likewise been fraught with the problem of how to keep warfighters fed and healthy for combat. World War II was the first major conflict in which more military personnel were killed in combat than died of diseases – diseases often worsened, if not caused, by poor nutrition. Nutrition, unfortunately, wasn’t the main criterion for the earliest field rations; foods were chosen because they traveled well. The first standard ration issued to soldiers in the Continental Army included a pound a beef, 18 ounces of flour, 3 pints of peas or beans, a pint of milk, a half-pint of rice and, to prevent scurvy, a quart of cider or spruce beer. This first ration immediately ran into problems: It proved impossible, for example, to supply and transport milk in such quantities, and meats had to be heavily salted to avoid spoilage. While the Army and the Navy worked to mature the bureaucracy and infrastructure necessary to administer field feeding, the ration itself had changed very little
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by the Civil War, when the Union Army’s marching ration consisted of a pound of hard bread, salt pork or fresh meat, sugar, coffee, and salt – hardly sufficient to supply nutrients to a mature human body. An Army camp manual written by Florence Nightingale emphasized meat and milk as protein sources and whole grains, fruits, and vegetables for carbohydrates. Fruits and vegetables proved difficult to procure, however; scurvy was common in the winter, and soldiers often fought over berry patches in the spring. Some soldiers developed night blindness – poor vision in low light – due to a lack of vitamin A. The “travel ration” distributed to soldiers in the 1898 Spanish-American War was the first military ration to contain canned meat, though it was of such poor quality that troops ate very little of it, and the hot and humid climates of the Caribbean and Pacific often caused other foods to rot. With the turn of the 20th century came the realization that field rations had to be tailored to particular combat situations and environments. New processing technologies were developed, and by World War I, the Army had
The first standard ration issued to soldiers in the Continental Army included a pound a beef, 18 ounces of flour, 3 pints of peas or beans, a pint of milk, a halfpint of rice and, to prevent scurvy, a quart of cider or spruce beer.
devised a reliable system of bringing perishable foods to troops. Garrison rations contained more carefully calibrated measures of protein, fat, and carbohydrate – but the “reserve ration” issued to World War I soldiers still differed little from that issued in the Civil War. As nutrition scientists began identifying the importance of particular vitamins and minerals during the 1920s and 1930s, a series of new rations were developed by the Army, beginning with the “D-ration” – basically a vitamin-fortified chocolate bar meant to stand in for a missed meal. These new rations would be the key to feeding an armed force that was deployed to every corner of the globe, and served in a variety of operational situations, during World War II. The A-ration, the classic garrison ration, typically consisted of fresh or frozen meat, fresh dairy products, and fresh fruits and vegetables. For obvious reasons, the A-ration was normally supplied to an established military base or camp, and was sometimes brought closer to the front lines with the use of portable kitchens or insulated containers. A second garrison ration, the B-ration, was composed of canned, dried, and dehydrated items that could be unitized and scaled to feed people in increments of five, 10, and 100. The most notorious of the World War II rations was the C-ration, the boxed operational ration issued to soldiers each day and initially consisting of three different canned meat entrees and two different combinations of bread, coffee, and sweets (the M- and B-unit cans). Unfortunately, troops were forced to rely on the C-ration – designed for temporary
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By Craig Collins
