Warm pizza in a packet? And a toothbrush for every meal. US and Italian paratroopers swap rations.
Synopsis
Every army in NATO has its own field ration. While perhaps not the height of culinary expression, these rations give soldiers the calories they need to power through a hard day in the field. From Ally to Ally, their contents differ in small, interesting ways.
Watch a US and Italian paratrooper swap their ration packs while on exercise in Italy. From warm pizza in a packet to ravioli in a can and toothbrushes, these soldiers may be from different continents but they find common ground in condiments.
Filmed during joint airborne operations, about 800 paratroopers from the US Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, the Italian Army’s 4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment and the German Army’s 26th Airborne Regiment performed several jumps over a drop zone in northern Italy.
Transcript
TRANSCRIPT (AUDIO AND TEXT ON SCREEN)
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
So I have a present for you.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Okay, I’m excited.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
I have an Italian ration kit to exchange if you want.
GRAPHIC: Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Oh, I'd love to.
I also have something for you as well.
It's our pizza slice cheese version of the MRE for the American.
GRAPHIC: Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
Oh, perfect.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
So there you go. Let’s see.
— TEXT ON SCREEN —
RATIONS SWAP
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
GRAPHIC: US SINGLE MEAL
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
So here we have pizza slice cheese.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
Oh, it will be interesting.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
So with American MREs,
we have a kind of a water-based system
to heat them up.
Yes, it comes with
handy instructions here.
What you’re going to do
is we’re going to take our water, and it doesn't have to be hot.
So we're going to go in here and we're going to fill it up to the black lines on the bottom. But the water reacts with the heater inside.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
I typically wait about three minutes for it to heat up.
But we can honestly, this one,
it's kind of exploding.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
I'm quite surprised.
I have another conception of pizza.
GRAPHIC: PIZZA SLICE
Okay.
It's like a toast. Okay.
We try.
Okay.
We can survive with this.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
You can survive with it.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
Instead of pizza I prefer to call it like toast.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Like toast? Yep.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
Good.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
INTERVIEWER
Another bite, no?
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
No thank you, I appreciate it.
Okay, here we have a cracker.
GRAPHIC: PEANUT BUTTER & CRACKERS
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
Oh, chunky peanut butter. I like a lot.
I spread like that.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
How universal is it that everybody loves the peanut butter and crackers.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
Good. I like
Oh, this is spicy.
GRAPHIC: JALAPENO CASHEWS
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Yeah, that's the jalapeno cashews I think.
They're pretty good.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
After that I need a lot of water.
Some sauce.
I drink like this?
GRAPHIC: APPLE SAUCE
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Yeah, you just peel open
the top and then you can just...
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
Oh, it’s like a jam.
For breakfast, it could be good.
Thank you very much.
Here is the 24-hour combat ration.
I will show you, there are three boxes.
One is for breakfast, one is for lunch
and the last one is for supper.
GRAPHIC: ITALIAN 24HR RATION
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Perfect. Okay, let's see what’s in here.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
Here we have the breakfast
and then you can open like this.
And there are a lot of accessories inside
For brushing teeth.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Oh, my gosh. Okay.
it comes with three toothbrushes
and a teeny tiny toothpaste.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
Napkin with some disposable spoon.
You have something to sanitise the water.
You have salt.
Instant coffee.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Oh, nice.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
You have a milk condensate.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Oh, wow, okay.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
Chocolate.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Oh, my gosh. There’s a lot.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
Something for your teeth to clean.
And here is, we have
a little stuff to use it to make the other cans
that are inside the other box hot, warm, hot.
For lunch, here we have
these cans with the typical ravioli
‘al ragù’ [with Bolognese sauce].
That is the Italian main dish, in general.
And of course, to eat like that,
cold, is not good.
But if you make it warm.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Yeah.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
You can put it like that.
GRAPHIC: RAVIOLI WITH BOLOGNESE SAUCE
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
It's actually pretty good.
It tastes, I don't know if
you ever had minestrone soup?
But the sauce kind of tastes like that.
And then...I don't know.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
If you like the lunch more than the dinner
then you can change.
For example, here.
Soup.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Oh nice.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
With beans and pasta.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
That sounds actually really good.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
And then we have chicken.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
The chicken in jelly?
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
And another bar.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
Okay, let's do the chicken in jelly.
GRAPHIC: CHICKEN IN JELLY
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
It's not bad. It's just...
it's like a weird consistency, a weird texture especially in jelly. But it’s not that bad.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
This is Macedonia [fruit salad], the mix of fruit.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Lt Mika Andrews, 173rd Airborne Brigade, US Army
I'll try it out.
GRAPHIC: FRUIT SALAD
It kind of throws me back to when I go to school, when I used to go to school or high school and my mom would pack me lunches and she either give me like the apple sauces
or the little plastic cups with all the fruits in them.
But I really like the fruit cup.
I really like the fact that it comes with the candies and the toothbrush and toothpaste.
That's pretty cool. I really enjoyed it.
I like how much stuff you got with it.
I think in terms of how easy it is to carry around probably like a five,
but just like overall experience,
I'd say about seven or eight too.
I really liked the ravioli. I didn't like the chicken and the meat in the jelly.
—SOUNDBITE IN ENGLISH—
Fabio,
4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, Italian Army
I understand.
Eight. Eight because in general when you go out
there, it’s quite good to not have so many
things to carry. Exactly.
At the end you don’t need to survive with this for a lot of years but just for a short period.
So I think it's quite good.
Thank you.
END
Music
Surreptitious Behaviour by Frank Sarkissian
Awkward moment instrumental by Davoli
Molto Bene instrumental by Durst
Two peas in a pod instrumental by Sarkissian
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