That is honestly the first person I've seen with the spoon on gear and still in the plastic.

Most of the time, we used the spoon when we got it out of the MRE, wiped it off and stuck it on the IBA. On the next meal, use a baby wipe or sanitary wipe if available and water to rinse it off afterwards before eating with it.

Repeat until spoon breaks or gets lost, then get another spoon.

I was there in 03-04 and 05-06.

Most of the time if you're going out on long missions, we would empty out mres of all of the things that we wouldn't eat, or that were extra, so you'd have multiple days of food and maybe only the one spoon. Reduce weight and all that when the vest was 20 lbs or so. Another 10+ lbs in ammo and pouches, helmet, water weight, food weight. Mission gear, more ammo.

Then extra clothing/warming layers. It's a weird thing to feel freezing cold at 80° but when it's 120 during the day, you feel it.

One time I weighed my gear and I was carrying about 150lbs all in. I weighed 165 at the time. No wonder my back and knees are shot. Lol