Field Pack
The Field Pack was a square canvas pouch, just larger than a foot square, designed to hold a single day's Meal, Combat, Individual (C-Ration) as well as sparse personal implements like a shaving kit and extra socks. The bed roll was attached externally (see Sleeping Bag Straps). The Field Pack's placement at the rear of the pistol-belt led to it being referred to colloquially as the "butt pack." The first pattern featured a square top flap which closed with a pair of web straps and friction buckles. This design was modified slightly in the 1961-pattern Field Pack (See Modifications below). Common features of both including canvas construction, attachment to the pistol belt with two slide keepers and a pair of eyelets at the top of the pack for attaching the individual suspenders directly to the pack in order to keep it upright and help distribute weight to the shoulders. Both also included a web handle at the top for hand-carriage, web strap along the side with eyelets for the attachment of equipment with either slide keepers or wire hangers, and a pair of web straps at the bottom of the pack for attaching items like the poncho and poncho liner. Both also featured a clear plastic window on the inner side of the pack for inserting a card with name and service number, as well as cloth-taped edges.
Read more about this topic: M-1956 Load-Carrying Equipment
Famous quotes containing the words field and/or pack:
“Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plough his field or gathering his
grain;
So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“A man was to live in that egg-shell day and night, a mile from the shore.... Think of making your bed thus in the crest of a breaker! To have the waves, like a pack of hungry wolves, eying you always, night and day, and from time to time making a spring at you, almost sure to have you at last.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)