NAPLES, Italy \u2014 Sailors serving in the Middle East are not going hungry, the Navy\u2019s highest officer said this week.
\nShips in the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group have at least a 10-day supply of food, Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, said Monday. He noted that many of those vessels have enough food to feed their crews for 30 days or more, according to a Navy Times report.
\n\u201cIn no way, shape or form has there been a time where in, at least in this deployment, where they\u2019ve not met the nutritional requirements of our menu,\u201d Caudle said during a meeting with reporters at a maritime conference in Maryland.
\nHis comments come amid reports that sailors on Lincoln and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli weren\u2019t getting enough to eat and, as a result, were rationing and sharing food. In a post last week on X, the office of the CNO called those reports \u201cfalse.\u201d
\nThey also follow a surge of Navy vessels to the Middle East as the U.S. enforces a blockade against Iran while working to ensure safe passage for tankers and other commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
\nIn addition to Lincoln and Tripoli, there are at least 13 destroyers in the region, along with other ships. These include USS New Orleans and USS Rushmore, which are part of the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group.
\nThere are at least 16,500 sailors and Marines already in the Middle East, with some 6,000 more on the way as part of the George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group.
\nIt was unclear Tuesday how many supply vessels were in the area to ensure that those ships had adequate stores of food and other necessities, such as body wash, shampoo, toothpaste and other personal care items.
\nMilitary Sealift Command operates about 125 vessels that replenish Navy ships, conduct special missions and pre-position combat cargo around the world, among other tasks.
\nU.S. Central Command didn\u2019t answer questions about whether any scheduled replenishments for the ships had been postponed or when Lincoln or Tripoli was last resupplied.
\n\u201cU.S. military logistics operations to resupply ships and land-based posts throughout the CENTCOM area of responsibility continue,\u201d the command said in an email Friday, adding that mail delivery to service members in the region had resumed after a temporary suspension.
\nA story published last week by USA Today highlighted concerns of unidentified families worried their sailors were not getting enough to eat. The report included photographs of nearly empty meal trays with just a small portion of food that the families said were sent by sailors aboard Tripoli and Lincoln.
\nThe article \u201cgrossly mischaracterized\u201d food service aboard the ships and the accompanying photos were not taken on a Navy vessel but rather were from an ashore dining facility, Caudle said, according to the Navy Times.
\nBut the images did resonate with some former and current sailors, who found them consistent with a late evening shipboard meal called midnight rations, or midrats, served to personnel who may have missed normal dining hours.
\n\u201cMy ship went for about a month or two on our maiden deployment where the only thing they would leave for midrats was the leftover meat options from the day,\u201d one poster wrote Friday in a discussion on the digital social media platform Reddit. \u201cNo veggies, occasionally overdried rice MAYBE \u2026 as someone on a night shift, my only real option for any vegetable in the day was the onion bits in the breakfast omelet line if they were running it.\u201d
\nBut other sailors pointed to homemade bread, rolls, cupcakes and other treats made by onboard culinary specialists as comforts that make life on ships a little easier. One Reddit poster recalled a Marine cook on an amphibious ship who creatively remade dried-out leftover hamburgers into patty melts and served \u201cone of the best breakfast burritos I\u2019ve ever had in my life.\u201d
\nMeals on Navy ships have long been a sore point with many sailors, who often lament the quality and selection of food and a repetitive menu on lengthy deployments. They often bring instant noodles, protein powder and bars, snacks and other foods onboard to help bridge the gap when meals are missed, offer variety or avoid long lines at mealtimes.
\nDepending on crew size, Navy ships serve hundreds to more than 10,000 meals a day. For example, the typical aircraft carrier serves at least 15,000 meals daily, while a destroyer offers about 900. That doesn\u2019t include snacks such as cereal, fruit, granola bars, other food items and drinks, usually available all day.
\nIn his 17 years as a Navy culinary specialist, Chief Petty Officer Daniel Strohl said he\u2019s never seen a Navy ship run out of food or have to ration it. But Strohl has made menu changes when food stores run low, such as when a replenishment is delayed due to military operations, weather or other reasons, he said.
\n\u201cSometimes, you put your orders in but then your orders get pushed to the left because of the operation,\u201d said Strohl, adding that a food order could be a couple of weeks late but eventually would be delivered. In the case of a delay, the culinary team on one ship could reach out to other ships in a strike group for a transfer of food to get them through until a replenishment. That task could be accomplished in 12 to 24 hours, he said.
\nPhotos of only one or a few items on a plate need context, Strohl added. Food service lines on Navy ships typically offer sailors the choice of at least two entrees and several side dishes, such as rice, potatoes, beans and vegetables. Soup, salad, fruit and dessert also are usually available, he said.
\n\u201cWhen we\u2019re taking pictures of a plate with one item on the plate, that\u2019s because you asked for one item,\u201d he said.
\n#USNavy #MiddleEastDeployment #SailorWelfare #FoodSupply #NavalOperations #AdmiralCaudle #USSAbrahamLincoln #USSTripoli #MilitaryLogistics #StraitOfHormuz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NAPLES, Italy \u2014 Sailors serving in the Middle East are not going hungry, the Navy\u2019s highest officer said this week. Ships in the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group have at least a 10-day supply of food, Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, said Monday. He noted that many of those vessels have enough food […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}