Shanghai MSGs on "Low Rations"

U.S. consulate staff in China help Marines running low on rations | Reuters https://t.co/K4jQLzemYE

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That headline has a kind of '55 Days at Peking' feel to it, but the low rations in this case are the result of Shanghai's city lockdown and zero-tolerance policy for movement outdoors, which has created food shortages. 

The MSGs have been reduced to MREs, which Reuters refers to as "vacuum-sealed rations."

The Marines only had vacuum-sealed rations left, the employee said in the message, seen by Reuters and verified by two people.

I'm sure the MSGs will improvise, overcome, adapt. (Question: was that ever a Marine slogan before it was said in Heartbreak Ridge? I think not, but let it go.) 

Living on MREs is unpleasant, no argument. OTOH, I'm old enough to have eaten C-Rats - combat rations, or technically the Meal, Combat, Individual - the old school field ration that the MREs replaced. Those came in cans, not vacuum sealed packs and, unlike MREs, nothing in them was dehydrated. 

In fact, one meal in every case of C-Rats contained the big prize, the golden ticket, a can of fruit salad in actual syrup. For all of their far greater nutritional value, MREs were never so good as a can of real fruit salad consumed in your bivouac position.