U.S. Navy families have spoken out about the state of the food being served to their sons and daughters amid President Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East.
Food stocks, along with morale, have plummeted in the region following the U.S. Postal Service’s temporary suspension of mail delivery to 27 military ZIP codes. Packages already in transit are reportedly being held without a clear delivery timeline.
Crew on board aircraft carriers the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Gerald R. Ford are beginning to feel the effects. Pictures obtained by the Center on Conscience & War and published by USA Today show the grim meals the sailors and Marines are being served.
One sailor on the USS Abraham Lincoln said, “The food is tasteless, and there’s not nearly enough, and they’re hungry all the time,” one community organizer trying to get packages to the afflicted fighters reported.
One image shows a dry patty, plastic-looking carrots, and a slab of processed meat on a plastic tray. Another now-viral image shows shredded meat and a single tortilla on a mostly empty tray.
“We have the strongest military in the world. You shouldn’t be running out of food, and you shouldn’t not be able to get mail on the ship,” Dan, 63, the father of a service member struggling with the situation told USA Today.
“The one thing we had over our adversaries [was] we fed our people,” Dan, who also served in the Marines and asked the paper to identify him only by his first name to shield his child from potential retaliation, added.
MAGA Rep. Randy Fine pledged to fix the issue in an X post laden with his regular dose of Islamophobia. “This is what we’re feeding our brave men and women overseas as they fight Muslim terror in Iran. I know everyone is trying, but our servicemembers deserve so much better than this. I’m going to work with our military to get this fixed ASAP,” he posted, sharing the images.
Dan’s daughter is aboard the USS Tripoli. The warships are tasked with enforcing the U.S. blockade of ships leaving Iranian ports, according to the U.S. Central Command, though they may be receiving new orders after President Donald Trump announced Friday morning that the Strait of Hormuz had reopened.
A Texas mother whose son, a Navy sailor, is also aboard the Tripoli, said her son has complained about hunger. Her family has spent at least $2,000 on care packages, she said, but none have reached her son due to the postal issues. She told USA Today that her son told her that he and his colleagues ration and share food.
Supplies “are going to get really low,” the sailor told his mother in messages seen by USA Today. He added that he doesn’t anticipate a restock until the ship returns from its mission.
“Morale is going to be at an all-time low,” he wrote.
Things are no better on the USS Gerald R. Ford, which, on April 15, broke the record for the longest deployment of any aircraft carrier since the Cold War, at 295 days.
It docked in Crete in the Mediterranean on March 23 after a laundry fire ravaged the ship. It is also reportedly plagued with plumbing problems.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Pentagon and the White House for comment.
