I was never in the military but years ago I would buy cases of MREs for emergency preparedness. Some came with tiny little bottles of Tabasco sauce in certain ones, like with the chili or spaghetti. They were so cute! Some were actual military surplus and others were civilian MREs. Can’t remember which ones came with the tiny bottles of Tabasco but I loved those. That was later than Vietnam so I’m thinking you had a bigger bottle to carry around and didn’t get a teeny one in an individual meal.
I eventually switched to dehydrated food for emergencies, because long shelf life. I wonder if the MREs still have the little glass Tabasco bottles? Now I want to buy a case.
Every MRE I ate from the 90's until now had Tabasco. The bottles were replaced by squeeze packets I believe. You can still buy the tiny bottles in a 6 pack at stores like World Market. I get a pack for my wife for her Christmas stocking every year. I will amend my post from earlier about not consuming coffee if not in liquid form. I forgot I used to take the old MRE crackers and break them up. Then I would add a cocoa powder packet, sugar, creamer, coffee packets, and some water and mix it up into a pudding like substance. It was something different and a nice little pick me up during a dull day.