Why doesn't the Army develop a canteen that doesn't make the water taste terrible?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Allen
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Allen

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Anyone in the Army knows about those nasty green canteens and the fact that anything that comes out of them tastes like poison. With all the technology that the military has, why wouldn't they want to make the water taste better? I know Army people are supposed to be "hooah" and all that, but doing so would seriously decrease dehydration. In our field sanitation class, we were told that the number one reason for dehydration in Iraq is that soldiers don't like the taste of the water they are given. That's why bottled water is so common now over there.
 
You're right, it should taste like beer coming out. Somebody can make a lot of money developing such a canteen.
 
Canteens??? Who uses canteens? The only time I used a canteen in the last 15 years was when I was in MOPP gear. Other wise I used CamelBak Combat Delta-5 Tactical Vest.

I don't know who you have been talking to but I can't think of a single person I deployed with who actually used their canteen.
 
Actually, if you boil the canteen in hot water every few weeks and let it air dry completely before closing the cap, water put into it will taste as good can taste.

The reason the tastes becomes so rank, is that the inside is never allowed to completely dry before being refilled. The constant moisture and darkness is very encouraging for fungal growth. For the record, the reason that bottled water is so common and popular is that, soldiers don't have to "wear" the bottles of water. Imgagine having to wear the uniform, the body armour, cargo pocket (with maps, map overlays, notebooks), helmet,due to Saddam we wore NBC suits, weapon, side arm, gas mask, goggles, night vision goggles (somewhere), ammo ...... AND a minimum of 2 quarts of water? (Get's kinda heavy.)

As long as there was at least a case of water in each HMMV before, every mission, I didn't care that much about full canteen's.
 
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