While the holidays are meant to be a time to gather with loved ones, which often involves sharing a meal, many active-duty service members and veterans will struggle to put food on the table this season.
Ahead of Thanksgiving, Newsweek spoke with Jim Whaley—who served two decades in the U.S. Army and now is the CEO of Mission Roll Call, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for veterans' issues—about food insecurity prevalent not only among veterans but those still serving our country.
"It actually hurts my heart to think about a young family overseas or even here in the United States on active duty that can't figure out how on Thanksgiving they're going to have a turkey," Whaley told Newsweek over the phone on November 19.
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) said that roughly 24 percent of active-duty service members experienced food insecurity at some point in 2020. Meanwhile, according to Feeding America, a U.S. hunger relief nonprofit, 1 in 9 working-age veterans are food insecure.
"It is an embarrassment to our country when we have 24 percent of active duty struggling to pay for food," Whaley said.
Newsweek reached out to the DOD and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) via email for comment on November 22.
Whaley said that food insecurity issues are really financial insecurity issues.
In 2024, an enlisted service member with a paygrade of E-1, the lowest rank, receives $2,017.20 per month, or $24,206.40 per year, in basic pay, according to Military.com. That is a 5.2 percent increase from comparative 2023 levels, according to the military news site.
"Twenty-plus years ago in the military, when I was in the Army, the officers would pass the hat, throw some dollars in it to make sure that some of the younger families had enough money to be able to buy a turkey and be able to take care of their families. It's only gotten worse," Whaley told Newsweek. "The military is not immune from inflation."
Whaley also said financial struggles among active-duty service members and veterans affect military recruitment and retention.
"Why would you stay in if your family has to suffer so much? Why would you recommend to your friends and other family members to join?" Whaley asked. "We also need to make sure veterans are taken care of because if those same active-duty members see that veterans struggle, why would they stay in?"
While the DOD's armed service branches recruited 12.5 percent more people in the 2024 fiscal year, the department still faces challenges in a market that Director of Military Accession Policy Dr. Katie Helland described at the Pentagon in October as having "low youth propensity to serve, limited familiarity with military opportunities, a competitive labor market and a declining eligibility among young adults."
Newsweek asked each branch of the U.S. Armed Forces for their retention rates for the 2024 fiscal year. The Marine Corps was contacted outside of business hours.
A Navy spokesperson told Newsweek via email on November 26, "The Navy exhibited strong retention during FY 2024 by surpassing 100% of our set enlisted Sailor and 90% of our set officer retention goals."
Whaley is calling on the DOD and the VA to work together to solve food and financial insecurity issues among active-duty service members and veterans, telling Newsweek, "If we want to ensure that we continue to enjoy the freedoms that we have, we need to make sure that we're taking care of active-duty military.
"There should be no reason in a country as powerful as ours, as rich as ours, that military service is relegated to those that are willing to suffer and not be able to provide for their families. That to me is just unfathomable. We need to do a much better job," he said.
The DOD released an infographic in September, outlining the steps it's currently taking to take care of active-duty service members and their families. Some steps include a cumulative 9.8 percent pay rise over the past two years and a proposed 4.5 percent pay raise for 2025.
The department also mentioned that the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), a monthly allowance meant to offset housing costs when government housing is not provided, increased by an average of 18 percent over 2022 rates and the Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS), a monthly allowance meant to offset the cost of food, increased by 13 percent over the past two years.
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