Over two and a half years ago, I was on the warpath against the Lloyd Austin-led Department of Defense.
Not just because he was a big, woke doofus, completely undermining and destroying the morale of our armed forces. Like that wasn't bad enough.
But the simple fact was, soldiers weren't being fed. Not that the food sucked, but that it wasn't there. Period.
In August of 2023, there was an absolutely disgusting scandal breaking out at the massive installation in Texas known once again as Fort Hood. That soldiers hadn't been able to get proper meals, sometimes any meals at ALL, for months at a time.
...But I’ve gotten my independent confirmation from impeccable, on the scene sources, and I am snorting fire.
This is – and has been – happening at Fort Cavazos, the former Fort Hood in Texas, and is unconscionable.
Fort Cavazos Soldiers Have Been Without Proper Access to Food for Months
One of the Army’s largest bases has been barely able to keep its food services up and running for months, according to soldiers stationed there and dining facility schedules reviewed by Military.com.
DERP DERP
Army brass had all the usual excuses...
ALL THE COOKS ARE ON DEPLOYMENT WAAH
...and promises it was all going to be fixed, like, tomorrow, by kiosks or something ludicrous.
Unforgivable.
At Thanksgiving the next year, 2024, what to my horrified eyes appeared but a story about another Army base - Fort Carson in Colorado - where the kids were getting shafted on dining hours and food again. And if they were lucky enough to score something resembling comestibles, it looked like this:
I do not understand why in this country, in 2024, we are writing headlines like -
— Konstantin Toropin (@KToropin) November 26, 2024
"Food Is Hard to Find at Fort Carson, as Base Struggles with Feeding Soldiers"
reporting by @StevenBeynon -https://t.co/JUY4eTD360
Excuse me, WHUT?!
An American Army base in CONUS was 'struggling' to feed its soldiers?
When that same Army base could hand out 2200 meals to local families...
Fort Carson officials delivered 2,200 Thanksgiving meals to those in need this week. Fort Carson's Culinary Academy has been preparing Thanksgiving meals for the Salvation Army for nearly 20 years. https://t.co/Chzi2zKPMK
— KOAA News5 (@KOAA) November 24, 2024
...instead of making sure it fed its soldiers first?
That is how depraved and indifferent the Biden-Austin Department of Defense was to the health and welfare of its troops.
They couldn't be bothered to make sure their commanding officers furnished the troops with their three squares a day, but God forbid someone used the wrong pronouns.
I was incandescent with rage. And said as much.
...But the way those precious lives entrusted to the military are treated right at this very moment sure won't help that a bit.
It makes me sick.
These monsters can't be gone a minute too soon.
Trump has already been reelected, and I had hope.
In answer to a call for help, Chef Robert Irvine had come on board months before, after Army brass threw up their hands. Chef Irvine spent ten years as a cook in the British Navy, most of it aboard the royal yacht HMS Britannia, and has never lost his love of the military.
But his way of cooking and running a kitchen is radically different from the institutional cans and sauce cards they teach in military cooks' school, and Army leadership was worried that it would be too institutionalized a culture to crack.
But Irvine's a big guy and was willing to try. But, my God, so many problems and where to start?
In January of 2025, Irvine took the Army hierarchy to a university cafeteria so they could visualize what he meant by reenvisioning food service.
...Recruited by Army officials last year as a consultant on reimagining the Army food system, he took the service’s senior culinary officials to Columbia University in New York City.
“Most collegiate feeding is done in stations, and it’s kind of sleek and sexy, and the food is good,” Irvine said. “Why? Because they’re paying for it, number one. So are our military folks. We get paid the same to feed a military soldier as we do as a teenager in a university. So there should be no difference in the offering.”
And it blew minds.
...One of the Army officials — Col. Adam Seibel, the Headquarters, Department of the Army, Troop Support Division Chief, and Army Food Transformation — was impressed.
“After touring it, meeting with their business manager, their chefs, and eating there — I mean, it’s unreal,” Seibel said. “What this campus dining facility can do with multiple nodes, running upwards of 22 hours a day, for the cost that they procure and serve for, […] there’s no reason why the Army couldn’t do this.”
Irvine has been pitching the Army on using the college dining venue model and food truck-based menu options in its revamp of service dining halls.
A major benefit, Seibel said, “might be getting soldiers to eat more healthy.”
Healthy and fresh is what Irvine emphasized to the Army.
...Irvine compared soldiers and their diet to a new Mercedes sports car with a quarter tank of fuel: it won’t go far. If it’s not the lack of food, the bad quality of food is comparable to putting diesel in a gas-powered car.
“Unless I put into you what I need you to have to be able to do your job, I’m not going to get much out of you because the body will eventually break down,” Irvine said. “So, for me, food and nutrition are the key component and platform for any fighting force, no matter if it’s our country or somebody else’s. So what we put into our bodies is what we get out of it.”
Irvine has helped the Army vary the menu options to simplify ordering and provide options to help soldiers of all builds and body types get the nutrients they need. Though they are working to provide healthier options, it won’t result in mundane meals.
By this past December, Irvine had an Army program up and running and was getting ready to begin implementation.
WE DON'T NEED MORE MONEY. WE NEED SMARTER PURCHASES
The rollout has been nothing short of transformational so far, and Irvine has been all over the globe, mentoring the staff at every base he stops at.
...Through pilots such as Campus-Style Dining Venues and Victory Fresh, Donahue said the Army has already demonstrated that commercial food service can reduce subsistence costs by 35% while improving quality.
The Army’s partnership with professional chef and author Robert Irvine, who serves as a Special Consultant to the Army, helped accelerate that shift. Irvine spent months traveling with Army leaders to study supply chains, campus dining models and commercial best practices. Known for his Food Network show “Restaurant: Impossible,” Irvine said the modernization effort has been the most meaningful project of his career.
“The guy on the TV show is the guy that shows up every day for the last three years to modernize Army feeding,” Irvine said. “It was a struggle to get to this point. Now we have to change the whole Army at a very fast pace.”
Irvine emphasized that the goal is not just better food, but better Soldiers.
“We’re proving that we get a more resilient Soldier — sleeps better, eats better, works out better, better mood,” he said. “You can buy tanks and planes, but if you don’t have people to use them, it’s useless.”
And the service metrics are astonishing.
...ASC [Army Sustainment Command] oversees food operations across 81 installations, including 176 dining facilities. Shirley said the Army invests more than half a billion dollars annually in its food program and is now working to expand campus‑style dining venues, Victory Fresh sites, kiosks, food trucks and meal‑prep services across the force.
With Victory Fresh at Fort Lee, Soldiers can move from the point of sale to their seats in two minutes, which Shirley calls a stark contrast to long lines and limited options of the past.
Donahue said the modernization effort also reshapes the mission of the Army’s 92G culinary specialists, allowing them to focus on field feeding rather than running garrison dining facilities.
Remember the abysmal chow hall at Fort Carson, with their lima beans and toast for a meal, if a soldier could get one at all?
Health and Human Services Secretary and ultra Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) guru Bobby Kennedy just visited Fort Carson's revamped facility. He heard from a beaming base commander that utilization since the change has gone from maybe 400 to 600 soldiers a day to feeding over 3,000.
I visited Fort Carson to see firsthand how the Army is transforming military nutrition through its Campus-Style Dining Venue modernization program, with the help of celebrity chef @RobertIrvine.
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) June 18, 2026
The results speak for themselves: healthier meals, higher morale, and lower costs.… pic.twitter.com/kufTvnYjL3
...The results speak for themselves: healthier meals, higher morale, and lower costs. Fort Carson is proving that real, nutritious food can strengthen military readiness while saving taxpayer dollars.
And where the Army had been spending $17-18.50 a day to feed each soldier, even with the emphasis on serving freshly prepared food, sourcing local ingredients, fewer canned goods, and more open hours, they've gotten that cost down to $12.50 per soldier per day.
I mean, that is just phenomenal improvement.
I'll bet when those kids realize what they are saving now that they can eat at a decent dining facility instead of forking out all that money for fast food, it'll get even more popular.
Like having your cake and eating it, too.
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