Military Marine Corps Superstition
When youre in combat or even training its bad luck to eat the charms in your MRE Its something you learn early on so you just dont do it. Every MRE comes with some sort of dessert.. like lemon pound cake or poppy seed pound cakes. Those are the best, but you never know what youre going to get.. but if you get these charm candies you arent supposed to eat them. Youre supposed to throw them out on the side of the road or into the garbage. I dont really know why its bad luck. But I think its just in the Marines. There are stories of misfortunes from Marines disobeying this.
The informant did not seem to have much of an opinion about the reasoning behind this superstition. In my opinion, it seems to relate to the Marines (or other military service members) experiences with dangerous situations while in combat. Although the individuals play a large part in their own safety, they are living in constant danger, and the potential of death looms over them. In some ways, this superstition seems to be an attempt to alter ones fate in a dire situation. The Marines have relatively little control over their situation during combat, and must follow orders in every aspect of their lives. In this way, it makes sense that throwing away these candies is a way of asserting some form of control over ones own fate. It is ironic that these candies represent bad luck because they are charms, which typically are viewed as symbols of good luck. The charms remain symbols of luck in this context, but represent bad luck rather than good. This consistency as a symbol of some form of luck helps explain why these specific candies are associated with bad luck, and exemplifies that this association is not entirely random.
Evidently, this superstition is discussed in this publication:
Evan Wright (2004). Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the new face of American war. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. pp. 83. ISBN 0-399-15193-1.
Furthermore, there are many message boards and online posts regarding this superstition. There are even people who suggest that candy should be entirely removed from MREs, supposedly to prevent even the possibility of bad luck stemming from these candies. The informant also stated that he believes the film Jarhead (2005), directed by Sam Mendes, references this superstition.