Defense Department Sent 100,000 Pounds Of Turkey For Thanksgiving To Overseas Troops

According to the Pentagon, in keeping with the tradition of sending turkey to the brave United States troops serving overseas, almost 100,000 pounds of the signature Thanksgiving bird will be sent to soldiers spending holidays in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan.

In addition to 98,820 pounds of turkey, Department of Defense will also be shipping 10,173 pounds of stuffing mix, 6,588 pounds of marshmallows and 918 gallons of eggnog. The Defense Logistics Agency also decided to contribute to the list of items, sending in 47,880 pounds of beef, 31,650 pounds of ham, 6,288 pies, 9,378 cakes and 76,032 cookies, FOX 40 reported.

Brig. Gen. William Graham, who is stationed with troops in Kabul, Afghanistan, spoke to C-SPAN on Thursday, said handing out turkey meals to the troops on Thanksgiving is one of his “favorite part” of the age-old military tradition of celebrating the holidays.

"Obviously being away from my family, is one of our greatest challenges," he said. "What the Army has done a great job of is building resilient families."

This year, it would be Graham’s sixth year of celebrating the holidays with the troops overseas.

U.S. troops stationed in Okinawa, Japan, also enjoyed a grand feast on Thanksgiving, thanks to the unit’s spouses and the nonprofit United Service Organizations, who cooked them delicious meals on the holidays. The 1st Marine Aircraft Wing also tweeted photos of the sumptuous spread that was prepared for them on the occasion.

President Donald Trump also held a video teleconference with the troops abroad for thanking five branches of the military for their service.

“We totally support you,” he said. “In fact, we love you.”

However, the president’s gratefulness got lost in the larger part of the speech, which came off as extremely self-crediting.

“We’re being talked about again as an armed forces — we’re really winning,” he said, News reported. “We’re not fighting anymore to just walk around, we’re fighting to win, and you people are really, you’ve turned it around over the last three to four months like nobody’s seen, and they are talking about it, so thank you very much.”

Insinuating that his predecessor President Barack Obama held back the winning streak of the troops through his policies, Trump said, “They say we’ve made more progress against ISIS than they did in years of the previous administration. And that’s because I’m letting you do your job.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who also works as a military analyst for CNN pointed out how the POTUS’ speech might have come off as insulting to the troops.

“First of all, I’m thankful for the fact that he did address the soldiers. But the message I heard and some of the things he said would not have rung very well with me had I been a deployed soldier,” Hertling said, the Hill reported. “We have been winning. You’re talking to soldiers and military personnel around the world who have been in this fight for 17 years, and to suddenly be told they’re winning now when they weren’t winning before is somewhat insulting.”

Hertling said instead of giving them an update on how the U.S. stock market and economy was performing, all the commander-in-chief could have done was say, “Hey, thanks.”