So for those who saw it I had recently made a diorama of a howitzer for my niece in the arctic airborne artillery (11th Airborne). She recently told me she had an incident with a protein bar from a MRE. It was pretty cold out, and the bar was hard and sticky, and when she bit into it it snapped a dental wire while out in the field. So I decided the diorama needed a MRE on it. I had seen the tamiya kit that had tiny cases or MREs, but they were simply brown paper with the labeling on it and you folded it, but I found it almost impossible to fold as it is thin paper. So I quickly cut 2 tiny bits of draft board to simulate a cube with one package removed. I glued it in with white glue and glued it on the side of the cargo pallet. For a sense of a]scale this whole thing is about the size of your fingernail.
Great project. I feel badly for your niece. Thank her for her service.
She is going to be thrilled when she gets that. Hope by now she’s had her wire fixed. Poor girl!
Mmm, good times… Also known as:
Meals Rejected by Everyone
Meals, Rarely Edible
Meals Requiring Enemas
Meals Refusing to Exit
…plus a few that I can’t repeat in a public forum. 
She actually started her drive out west today with it in the car. Her sergeant major who I’ve talked with before making stuff for their unit was pretty impressed with all the tiny details. I’m going to meet her out in North Dakota on the weekend and we will drive together up through the Yukon over to Anchorage. Should be quite the adventure. She’s been living at our house the last few weeks after finishing Airborne School before heading to the new unit.
I’m guessing you’re the cool uncle!
That was too good a detail to pass up.
I can’t get over how realistic your dioramas look. Brings back lots of memories. Very well done.
Love the detail!
An amazing piece of work. It is like you had the hands of a fine surgeon!
For more detail as to what is inside I modeled it in OnShape and cut the top and bottom face. And while a cad model seems excessive for 2 rectangles, I just think better in cad (dimensions and constraints) versus scaling things in illustrator. This is also the answer when your spouse asks why you have a bowl of the little scrap pieces of draft board (and you know who you are!). I did the sharp crease lines in the paper with the back side of an xacto blade. It’s painted with Tamiya Flat buff (XF57) acrylic to hide the burnt edge to look like more MRE packs stacked in there
Now that she’s in an arctic unit they don’t get MREs which would freeze solid, they get freeze dried instead which she said is way better.
We’re they still k-rations back in Vietnam?
Your miniature skills are seriously impressive! Not surprisingly.
Yes, although we had a regular cook and didn’t have the rations often, usually when we had to change positions to stay in range of the infantry. The artillery had it a little better than the infantry. 
AIRBORNE! Good for her. If she can catch a slot for Jumpmaster, tell her to jump for it.
She’s a battery commander in PFAR, so jumps after her howitzers, the only other school she thought might be useful is air assault, as she sling loads the 777 and m198s, and that is mostly concerned with helicopter operations.
David, I gotta tell you my niece really enjoyed the photos you had sent me of your time in country. As she noted you had to deal with jungle heat whereas she has to deal with arctic cold.
I can’t believe all the gear she is carrying. The temperatures got me down at first, but after a couple weeks I got used to it. Once it dropped down to the 60’s and I thought I was going to freeze.
And way fewer grizzly bears! They jump with live ammo in their side arms for bear protection, and carry bear spray on their rig!