The ways of the military can seem mysterious to the outsider.
Now there’s news that may seem even more confusing than usual—a massive surge in holiday food shipments to troops overseas compared to last year. It includes everything from pies—81,360 versus 6,288 last year, NBC News reported—to other items you might want on the table tomorrow, except maybe green bean casserole.
But the number of troops is the same.
Targeted for delivery are 9,738 whole turkeys, 51,234 pounds of roasted turkey, 74,036 pounds of beef, 21,758 pounds of ham, 67,860 pounds of shrimp, 16,284 pounds of sweet potatoes, 19,284 cakes and 7,836 gallons of eggnog, according to MilitaryTimes.
However, there hasn’t been a sudden massive increase in troop count around the world. Even personnel now at the U.S.-Mexico boarder aren’t recipients, as they’ll be fed from local bases, Defense Logistics Agency spokesperson Michelle McCaskill told NBC.
No, it’s a lot more food to roughly the same number of people that received it during Thanksgiving 2017.
According to McCaskill, “the huge increase in pies from this year in comparison to last year was due to a change in menu planning on behalf of the services.”
There was no available explanation of what a menu change meant, although apparently there won’t be leftovers.