I'm currently reading "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young".  There's a passage where Joe Galloway, the correspondent with Moore's unit, heats some water with C-4:

"At first light I pinched off a small piece of C-4 plastic explosive from the emergency supply in my pack and used it to boil up a canteen cup of water for coffee.  If you lit C-4 very carefully you could be drinking hot coffee in maybe 30 seconds; if you were careless it blew your arm off."

Any of you guys every try this?

Almost every day for 12 months
The problem was when the Army stopped being so generous with the stuff
Before our missions they would back up a duece & 1/2 (thats a sixby jarheads)...and drop off a shit load of munitions and assorted toys to pick from...there was almost always a nice engineers pack ...we could help ourselves to..and so we did..
Later on in 69 they were no longer quite so generous..and so the boyze took to taking C4 out of the claymores and cooking with that..(I shit you not)
I always checked my claymores ...heard horror stories of claymores that didnt go bang in the night...
nothing heats water faster..or hotter...as those heat tabs were too slow and not hot enough..it you want hot chow fast..its the best bar none and you could also blow stuff up VC with it...which was nice too  [:)]

Oh...and kids...dont try this at home!

c-4 is a very stable substance. you can burn it and you are good. you can pound it and you are good. but DO NOT burn and pound it, or you will be plastered on the belly of the c-47 flying overhead.

to extinguish, sufocate.

Sterno tastes better though [:P]

It does burn hot.  It is toxic stuff, though.  Breathing much of the fumes is to be avoided.