Most Americans start their day with a steaming cup of coffee, a daily ritual that fuels our mornings and powers our lives. But for the men and women of the U.S. military, coffee is far more than just a drink; it’s a vital companion, a morale booster, and often, a symbol of home in the most challenging environments. From the front lines to the quiet moments between duties, the importance of coffee to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines is a story woven deep into the fabric of military life.
Join us as we brew up the fascinating history of coffee within the armed forces, sharing incredible tales of its unwavering presence. Discover how this beloved beverage has traveled with troops through every major conflict, sustaining spirits during the Civil War, powering soldiers through World Wars, and even becoming a coveted item of trade. We’ll explore the enduring tradition and the simple comfort that a hot cup of coffee has brought to generations of service members, connecting them to a shared experience that transcends time and duty.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 1: This is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on the show. And this next one, well, it’s about something so many of us do every day. Americans drink about four hundred million cups of coffee. The drink itself represents seventy-five percent of our yearly caffeine consumption. So, needless to say, this drink is important of us. It’s also important to the U.S. military. And today, Richard Munez, our regular contributor and listeners, shares an entertaining story on the subject. Take it away, Richard.
00:00:50
Speaker 2: There’s an all expression that goes that an army travels on this belly. Well, that’s true. Then coffee is a lubrication that runs that army. And if you’ve been in the military before, you know this is very important: coffee. It just makes it so much easier. I know, when we deployed to the Gulf, for instance, we took cooking utensils. The only time we actually used those cooking the tensils was once we made some French fries potatoes we found. But the one thing that got used constantly was the coffee pot. Now we didn’t take coffee with us, but the first time anybody went to one of the local air of towns is like that, guess what? They bought coffee! And we’d make coffee every morning we got up. Some people didn’t want to sit there and wait for it. What they just did was to heat up their water in their little canteen cups, put the instant coffee from the MRI packets in there, mixing a little bit of hot chocolate, little of creamy sugar. Hey, no good coffee. Coffee has been a part of every armed forces that I know of. If you’re a fan of the movie Master and Commander, there’s a scene where Aubrey’s cabin boy comes up and says, “There’s no more coffee,” and Aubrey says, “Fine, will drink tea.” Well, it just shows you how important it’s been. Even during the Civil War, it was very important. Soldiers would ride home and they’d tell about the battlefield experiences and stuff like that, but the word ‘coffee’ was used more than anything else. One soldier wrote home and he was complaining about lack of food, lack of morale, lack of this, lack of that, but he specifically spelled out ‘coffee.’ In fact, he said, “How can you possibly soldier without coffee?” The Confederacy didn’t have a lot of coffee to have. What they used to do was they would go out and they would trade with the Union soldiers when there was no fighting going on like that. They would meet in a, guess, some neutral zone, as you would want to call it that, and they would trade. They would trade tobacco, which they had plenty of, for coffee. The average Union soldier got well over thirty pounds of coffee a year as personal ration. So they had the coffee with some of the Union got all the way through World War One. Coffee. World War Two. Coffee. In fact, some of those iconic images that came out of World War Two concerned coffee. He was a G.I., this little ten up there, and he’s toasting the folks back home with a hot cup of coffee. Very important. Coffee has played a very important part for all of us. A friend of mine tells me a story. He was a Navy, not the Army, and now I need to qualify something here. I don’t know how true this story is. I know nothing about ships, I know nothing about the traditions on ships, and he tells me this story. For all I know, maybe he hallucinated. I don’t know, but it’s such a cool story, I’m gonna tell it to you. Anyway, he went through, basically, he went through a school and all stuff, and he did really, really well, and they said, “Hey, you did so well, we’re going to give you your choice of assignments.” Well, here’s a Trekky, like Star Trek, and if you can’t have Jim Kirk’s Enterprise or John luc Picard’s Enterprise, you settle for the one you got. In this case, nuclear aircraft carrier Enterprise we have today. He wants the bridge of the Enterprise, thinking it will be a fat chance he ever gets it. Well, guess what? He got it! Well, apparently there was a tradition on the bridge of the Enterprise. And like I said, I’ve never tried to check this out. So, you know, if there is, great. If there isn’t, forgive me. What happens on the Enterprise is this: the lowest rank in ’em on the bridge makes the coffee. Okay, that’s pretty cool. Okay. So he gets up there and he decides, “I am going to make the best cup of coffee the Captain’s ever had,” and he’s got, you know, visions of promotions dancing in his head, or whatever the case may be. But he wants to make sure the Captain never ever forgets him. So he goes out and he studies how to make coffee, and he goes to libraries, reading every book he can find, every article, stuff like that. He goes to baristas, who make coffee for a living, who learns their secrets and whatnot. By the time he’s finished, the only two entities in the entire universe and know more about making coffee than him is God and the guy in the Folgers commercial. So he goes out there and his first dawn the bridge, he makes the coffee. The smell coffee weference of the bridge. I mean, this phenomenal coffee smells smells great. Okay. The other tradition they had on the bridge was no one gets their cup until the Captain gets his. Cool tradition. Well, he’s sitting there and waiting for the Captain and all that stuff, because he’s sitting and going, “Oh, yeah, yeah, the Captain’s gonna take it, and he’s gonna look at it, and he can sit back in that chain and go, ‘Oh, yeah, this is a cup of coffee.’” Well, the Captain comes up, “Captain on the bridge!” and all that stuff. The Captain comes up, he’s talking to everybody, ports this cup of coffee and sits down in his chair, and he’s there talking, got his reports in front of him, but just puts his cup of coffee there on the his armchair, and he’s reading the reports, talking and stuff. And then he reaches over—here’s the moment of truth—picks up the coffee mug and takes a sip of it. And he’s sitting there expecting the Captain to smile. But that’s not what happened. The Captain spews this coffee all over a Master Chief that standing in, drops the cup of coffee like it was a snake, stands up and scans the bridge, and his says’s eyes locked on him and said, “What in the hell is wrong with you?” Apparently, there’s two types of water spickets on the ship. There’s fresh water, which is what you drink, and then there’s seawater, which you use for other purposes. He didn’t know the difference. When it came time for promotion time, guess what? They didn’t forget him, either.
00:06:54
Speaker 1: And great job is always to Monty Montgomery for producing that piece, and thanks to Richard Munez for his story—stories about coffee, and coffee in the military particularly. And again, if you have stories to share with us, we love hearing from listeners, and we’ve got a bunch of great listener contributions. Go to OurAmericanStories.com. Richard Munez’s story, ‘Coffee in the Military,’ here on Our American Story. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, we’re asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and seventy-six cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to OurAmericanStories.com now and go to the ‘Donate’ button and help us keep the great American stories coming. That’s OurAmericanStories.com.
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