Nine long months.

At sea.

And nobody in charge can tell these military families when their loved ones are coming home.

Moldy showers.

Broken toilets.

No soap, no deodorant, no toothpaste.

Meals so meager they’ve been reduced to half a cup of rice and two tortillas.

Sailors so exhausted they’ve tried to jump overboard.

Six sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln have tried to jump ship due to horrific conditions during their extended deployment in the Middle East.

Imagine how deplorable things must be to want to jump ship.

Imagine thousands facing food shortages.

A Disgrace

Our military men and women are being treated like third-class citizens from third-world countries. Certainly not the United States of America, once the gold standard in caring for their troops.

Like everything in the deplorable Trump administration, things are no longer so golden but deeply tarnished

We are witnessing a Sea of change in Military Care

My Greatest Generation father, Sgt Marvin Edelstein, would be appalled. He would not recognize the U.S. military.

American troops were once the most well-cared-for troops the world had ever known.

The U.S. military has always invested heavily in the medical and material support of its personnel, maintaining an unmatched standard of care compared to other militaries.

Historically, the U.S. Military earned a reputation during WWII and mid-century for providing some of the best-fed troops in the world, backed by massive industrial logistics; calorie-dense rations like C and K rations and a societal commitment to troop welfare.

The boys came first.

How We Once Fed Our Troops

Military leadership recognized that high-calorie familiar foods directly correlated with physical endurance and psychological resilience of the boys. Vintage ad 1942

During WWII, we made sure American servicemen and women were well fed.

In this 1942 WWII era ad from  Armour and Company, the headline tells us why the average soldier gains 7 pounds during his first month in the Army, proudly showing the meals he gets.

“Uncle Sam, they proudly tell us, prescribes a pound of meat per day for every soldier in this best-fed army in the world.”

“The first concern of any good mother is that her boy gets plenty to eat.”

“And Uncle Sam’s Quartermaster Corps is just as solicitous for every man in our fighting forces today. Their meals are so nourishing and well balanced the average soldier gains 7 pounds during his first month in service.

“Some gain as high as 20 pounds.”

“And it’s not soft fat.”

“For ours is a meat-eating active army,” they boast.

“Every day each and every man in the service gets a pound of muscle-building meat”.

Vintage ad 1942

“No great new plants had to be built or financed by our government to feed our growing army. War found the meat industry ready.”

“Right now Armour and the other meat packers are shipping millions of pounds of meat, poultry and dairy products each day to the army alone.

Armour was also providing tons of food daily for our allies through Lend-Lease. And supplying a major share of the meat for our folks at home. Not always in unlimited quantities to the home front-our boys in the service came first.

“We are all out to win this war!”

Today, as Military Appreciation Month comes to an end, this is no way to treat our troops.

If we love our military, we should feed them like we mean it.

Like we always did.