‘Our Troops Don’t Run on Ramen’: Veterans Defend Hegseth’s Pentagon Food Tab

Veterans are rallying behind Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after Democrats seized on reports that the Pentagon in September spent tens of millions of dollars on lobster, ribeye steaks, and other high-end provisions traditionally served to troops during holidays or ahead of and during deployments.A former army civilian and founder of a defense-focused media platform, War on The Rocks, Ryan Evans, pushed back on X, arguing that spending on food for “servicemembers at war, many of whom have been at sea for a long time already, is not a scandal.” He added: “This is just basic taking care of the troops.”The debate erupted after a government spending watchdog, Open the Books, published a breakdown of Pentagon expenditures for September 2025, the final month of the fiscal year, when agencies race to exhaust their budgets before the cash resets or risk losing similar commitments for the following year. The Pentagon’s September tab came to $93 billion, the largest recorded sum since 2008. Among the line items in that figure was $6.9 million on lobster tails, $15.1 million on ribeye steaks, $2 million on Alaskan king crab, and $1 million on salmon. The military also dropped $139,224 on doughnuts and $124,000 on ice cream.Furniture was also a major expenditure, with the military spending $60,000 on Herman Miller recliners and $12,000 on fruit basket stands. Democrats jumped on the report as evidence of the defense head’s mismanagement. Governor Newsom posted on X an AI-generated image depicting Mr. Hegseth reclining amid overflowing surf-and-turf spreads and fruit towers. Senator Chuck Schumer called Mr. Hegseth a “true grifter in every sense of the word.” The report also made the rounds among predominantly liberal late night talk show hosts. “What is this, ‘My 600-pound Defense Department’?” quipped Jimmy Kimmel. Stephen Colbert riffed on the Founding Fathers: “As Paul Revere declared on his famous ride, ‘One if by surf, two if by turf.’” Servicemembers were quick to push back, however, with many pointing to the military’s longstanding tradition of serving upscale meals on special occasions as a morale booster. Others noted that the September tab wasn’t far removed from the $79.1 billion the Pentagon spent in the same month under the Biden administration, which included $6.1 million on lobster tails, $16.6 million on ribeye steaks, and $6.4 million on salmon.An Iraq war veteran and founder of Independent Veterans of America, Paul Rieckhoff, stated that lobster and steak are not “some frivolous expense” but a “standard way of taking care of troops,” especially before or during long deployments. “A good meal is one of the few nice and celebratory things for them to look forward to,” Mr. Rieckhoff wrote on X. “They’re missing countless birthdays, weddings, funerals. Deployments are hard. Food is often a rare highlight. And not frivolous.” A retired Marine lieutenant colonel and former CIA paramilitary operations officer, Max Morton, credited Mr. Hegseth with upholding “the tradition of winners.” He wrote on X: “This is what real leaders do before they send their troops into battle.” A former Navy submarine nuclear reactor operator, Jon Gabriel, put it simply: “Our troops don’t run on ramen.”

‘Our Troops Don’t Run on Ramen’: Veterans Defend Hegseth’s Pentagon Food Tab

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