Freeking Army...now giving recruits bedtime snacks!

busyworks said:
Psh, just sneak some peanut butter packets from chow like the rest of us did.

Don't get caught though...
Click to expand...
I had to hide two of those things in my ass during a “health and wellness” inspection during OSUT... be careful with what you smuggle...
 
A contraband orange in the cargo pocket worked wonders for extra energy on the first OSUT ruck
 
Just graduated from MCRD San Diego.
They gave us snack packs in boot camp which we called 'Happy Meals".
They were a sealed package that contained things like a juice box, graham crackers, craisins, etc.
We got them after every evening chow and could eat them on SDI's square away time.
 
Where was this shit "back in the day". I'm glad to hear that nutritional concerns are more of a priority now. As long as that fine line between a boost up and a free ride is maintained. With the monitoring capabilities available now. There are ways to take the level of training. To points that were previously unknown. Not trying to get off topic. But, I believe that any way to supplement troops during any type of training evolution is a positive. What's that first tenet of SOF, " Humans before hardware". They monitor BUD/S candidates core temps with a transmitter in a capsule. So that they know when a hypothermic condition is imminent. We were part of a program that did T/E of biological contagion prevention through prior medical intervention. By means of exposure after having been "supplemented". Our unit motto was "Research for the Soldier". I would like to hope that some of what we did. Is actually being applied now. Otherwise we spent a lot of time in test areas getting zapped for nothing!
 
As someone who just recently graduated out of BCT, I personally am appreciative of the calcium bar being provided to myself and my fellow recruits. Our "bar time" was a bit of an end-of-day ritual that my platoon used to relax a little with one another and our DSes occasionally used it as time for AARs. Some of my Drill Sergeants were new, so they used the bar time to get information out of us about our training, what we thought could be improved on, and generally just to make sure we were learning what we needed to. If we missed something or misinterpreted information, they used the bar time to correct us or made a note for the next day. It helped some people a lot.

The bar also helped myself with PT tests, as I never went to sleep or woke up hungry and could perform better the following morning. It wasn't a big protein bar or anything like that, and I doubt it had as much nutritional value as I think it did, but it was a mental tool I used.

Whether it helped with stress fractures and what not, I'm not a professional but I can say that only two people out of my platoon of 70 went to the Physical Trainer for them during the entire cycle. Everyone else had strained muscles or something along those lines. Other platoons had similar numbers. We had very few people on crutches or missing training events throughout the cycle.

The best part was when we started finding the things in MREs. We weren't supposed to eat more than one in 24hours apparently but we'd end up getting them in the brown happy meals for lunch or something the next day.

Chocolate is the best flavor. Apple-Cinnamon? Not so much.
 
I learned a lot about resourcefulness and starvation at basic.
During my time at basic my platoon ( specifically us "squad leaders") got caught stealing MREs from one of the other companies supply room ( they weren't properly securing the door) and distributing them within the platoon because we were starving. No one admitted who was doing the stealing. The whole company got smoked and we had to start posting sentries outside of our supply room every night too. In my mind that taught me a tremendous amount about taking care of my guys even though I may have lacked on the Integrity value.
 
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