Turkey, ham, beef, eggnog and marshmallows have been prepositioned to provide a taste of home to U.S. troops on Thanksgiving Day, whether they’re in Afghanistan or aboard ship in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Getting the items to remote outposts in Afghanistan and other areas requires considerable planning, and the Defense Logistics Agency began in May, gathering holiday meal requirements from the services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year’s totals for the holiday foodstuffs are down considerably from last year,\u00a0reflecting the smaller numbers of troops still deployed in contingency areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, 15,202 pounds of turkey have been sent to Afghanistan \u2014 little more than half the 29,184 pounds sent there last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The combined turkey total for Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait is\u00a051,699 pounds, down from the 467,499 pounds of turkey that was shipped to the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year, troops in Afghanistan will share 1,854 pies. Last year, 6,000 pies were sent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The DLA list is light on side dishes this year as well\u00a0\u2014\u00a0no cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes,<\/span> or green beans were listed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that doesn’t mean they won’t be complements to the turkey;\u00a0they simply weren’t requested by military units as part of their holiday orders, likely because the units\u00a0had enough items in stock to take care of the Thanksgiving meals, according to Mike Tuttle, a spokesman for Defense Logistics Agency<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sweet potatoes must be in stock, because DLA sent\u00a0plenty of marshmallows \u2014 3,360 pounds to be split among troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year, 202 cases of stuffing were sent for troops deployed to Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait, but none went to Afghanistan; again, likely because units there didn’t need to order more specifically for the holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figures provided by DLA for food going to troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turkey, ham, \u00a0beef, eggnog and marshmallows have been prepositioned to provide a taste of home to troops on Thanksgiving Day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":99379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3299],"class_list":["post-106579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"QYKMUF7DHRGCRJ5MRMFO777W6Q","arc_canonical_url":"\/2015\/11\/19\/turkey-ham-on-tap-for-troops-thanksgiving\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n