U.S. sailors in Middle East rationing their food supplies, families report
Dan F. was alarmed when his daughter, a Marine aboard the USS Tripoli, a warship deployed to fight the Iran war, sent him a photo of a meal served on the ship. A lunch tray, two-thirds empty, carried one small scoop of shredded meat and a single folded tortilla.
A picture of a mid-April dinner on the USS Abraham Lincoln, shared by a service member with his family, was similarly unappetizing – a small handful of boiled carrots, a dry meat patty and a gray slab of processed meat.
Dan and other military family members worried that their loved ones deployed to the Middle East are going hungry are filling boxes with items they hope could help service members ride out prolonged deployments in the Middle East – homemade fudge, Jolly Ranchers, crossword puzzle books, playing cards, toothpaste, Girl Scout cookies and fresh socks. But mail delivery to military ZIP codes across the Middle East has been indefinitely suspended as of April, and packages in transit now hang in limbo.
A picture shared by a US Marine deployed on the USS Tripoli of a meal service members on board received.
Dan asked to go by his first name only to protect his daughter from retaliation.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the mail stoppage or reports that some U.S. vessels were short on food.
Dan F.’s daughter told him in sporadic messages – when the USS Tripoli reached a pocket of internet service – that members were rationing their food supplies on the ship. Fresh produce was nowhere to be found, she told him. [Continue reading…]
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told the military in a speech on Sept. 30 that it is “completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon.”
Perhaps it was no coincidence that Hegseth took notice of his employees’ weight at the end of September. Military personnel spent the month dining in luxury.
The Pentagon spent $2 million on Alaskan king crab in September. It’s the fifth time the Pentagon under Donald Trump has spent $2 million or more on king crab in a single month: twice during his first term and three times in 2025. It’s only happened one other month in history (February 2021).
Fortune magazine recently declared that king crab has taken caviar’s place as the “hottest luxury ingredient.” One seafood merchant explains that “king crab isn’t a budget buy” due to its “remote harvesting” and “labor-intensive handling.”
The military also bought $6.9 million of lobster tail this September. Again, it was not an isolated incident; it’s been a theme of Hegseth’s spending so far.
In 2025, the DoD spent more than $7.4 million on lobster tail in four separate months: March, May, June and October. That had previously only happened once in history (October 2024). [Continue reading…]