https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-bistro-42-ft-hood/

didn't they just allocate a trillion fucking dollars to their military

$39 a day out of their paychecks for a college-style meal plan? So we are bilking our soldiers $1000+ a month so they can eat slop

E1 soldiers earn about $14/hr in base pay so this is straight up taking 3 hours a day of work out of their pocket. I know they get like $450/month for feeding themselves, but it's less than half of what this Freedom deduction costs overall.

Junior enlisted typically don’t actually see the BAS (basic allowance for sustenance). Everyone living on the base and/or assigned to a unit associated with a dining facility typically has it taken out of their check before they see it and the money goes straight to the entity providing meal service, whether or not they use it or have the opportunity to eat at the facilities during meal hours (the latter is against policy but always happens). There has been a lot of reporting over the last decade or so on the US military not bothering to make sure their goons are fed properly or housed in decent (mold free) living conditions, which I’m assuming the DOD paid some McKinsey freaks a ton of money to come up with this solution they will inevitably botch b

retvrn to tradition where the tradition is Cardinal Richelieu's 'the army will feed itself' doctrine of looting food to survive

This is such a petty expense to be trying to claw back like this. There is no way that the military, with its economy of scale, is spending more than it takes per soldier for chow hall food - all this does is add another thing that the solders have to stress over, when the whole point of the military social democracy thing is insulating the troops from the negative effects of capitalism to ensure their loyalty + keep them focused on their job.

It's not a very long walk from this to charging rent for a barracks room.

Wait until you hear about PPV housing and basic allowance for housing (BAH). They already do this for the privilege of living in the equivalent of a “luxury” apartment instead of a moldy barracks room.

So the government is doing company script for army? That isnt a good look when you mint the real currency

My thoughts exactly. Making a company town with company script when you yourself are the government. It's peak levels of braindeath.

But hey, maybe they want people to be stuck in debt to the military with only savings in a currency usable only within the military.

Damn, they're forcibly taking $39 out of their paychecks for food per day?

and

If soldiers do want more food than the $39 will cover, they “can choose to pay out of pocket for what they go over,”

so there really is no reason to force the exchange to fake money anyway

The point is that Uncle Sam is taking $13 from each soldier 3x a day and there is nothing they can do about it

Okay, so instead of walking through a line and being handed a plate of food during the three times a day that the dining halls are open... you have to slow everything down to think about how much "freedom bucks" you're spending per item, per meal. And if you guess wrong, slow down the lines even more to pull out cash or debit/credit card to pay the remainder if you go over.

With an "all day" chow hall, I expect the amount of food waste will be increased dramatically.

There should be an "The Onion" article about the troops being charged for every gallon of fuel and bullet fired.

Freedom Dollars

Is that like Monopoly money?

Is the US about to find out what happens when you don't pay your soldiers?

i really really hope so

come on ghosts of Smedley Butler and Evans Carlson you have some haunting to do

what you dont understand is that you can use five slurp juices on each of your freedom bucks to increase their freedom value

"freedom" dollars, really? god they are running that word into the ground. like just call it meal bucks or some shit. its a cafeteria on base in texas, not some jerk-me-off fob in central asia.

this is so stupid, it's absurd.

America has been a self-parody for a while now the way they label everything as Freedom™ X

There were two bald eagles in some national called freedom and liberty. I wanted to barf

Star(s and stripes)bucks

They will be called 'freddies' colloquially.

Lmfao wait you have to pay for your own food in the military? I thought room & board was one of the selling points

Back in my day, your pay was auto deducted every 2~4 weeks to pay for the dining facilities. This was pulled out, even if you didn't eat at the dining facilities. There was/is paperwork to get reimbursed if you are unable to get to a dining facility when in garrison (and not training out in the field) but most of us never bothered with it. I think when doing training/deployments and being fed, the dining facility deduction was stopped but I can't remember with any certainty.

I think when doing training/deployments and being fed, the dining facility deduction was stopped but I can't remember with any certainty.

They typically just shifted which entity received the money instead.

there's so much graft in the US mil apparatus, none of the allocation ever seems to reach the bottom. i remember when all those stories came out where like soldiers in iraq had family back home organize fund raising to get like body armor and basic shit.

the administration dismissed the obvious contradiction of trillions going missing as "you go to war with the army you've got not the army you want".

the war machine is a paper tiger. it has just enough bombs and ammunition to discourage disorganized resistance, but there is no meat left on the bone. its all gobbled up by the hogs.

Who's ready for an indentured servitude-based military?

Champing at the bit for a Freedom Fries pun but I'm too dumb for a good one.

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