Soldiers Say It’s Hard to Eat a $45 Million Parade
Jim Hightower’s Lowdown / Substack & The Progressive

(August/September Issue) — How embarrassing. Our showbiz president’s glorious $45 million military parade — fssssst — fizzled. The gods rained on it, the thing dragged on and President Donald Trump himself kept nodding off in his chair. Sad.

His show needed some of the reality-TV drama that defines this president. For example, he could’ve had a phalanx of food trucks rumbling down the street, chased by hundreds of hungry US soldiers, waving empty plates and chanting, “Feed the Troops!”

Besides being entertaining, that spectacle would’ve brought long-overdue public attention to an outrage that really rankles rank-and-file soldiers — namely, hunger. Yes, the trillion-dollar Pentagon budget that overflows with waste and boondoggles for corporate contractors actually leaves military families struggling to have enough to eat, much less being well-fed.

Indeed, about 25% of service members are so poorly paid and poorly served on US Army bases that they are officially “food insecure,” relying on food stamps and local food pantries for their bare bones nutritional needs.

Last November, for example, it was reported that the base dining hall at Fort Carson, Colo., was serving a miserly “meal” consisting of one slice of toast and a spoonful of lima beans. Some bases are only offering gas-station-style grab-and-go snacks.

More scandalous, soldiers have a $460 “food tax” automatically deducted from their meager paychecks each month to pay for food. But the Army brass quietly diverts two-thirds of the soldiers’ money to other purposes — which they won’t disclose.

Congress knows about this and does nothing. Trump doesn’t even want to know. And Pentagon honcho Hegseth is lost in the fog of his own incompetence. To help raise awareness and Hell, go to FeedingAmericaAction.org.