NBC
News reported:
Marines at
Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan will lose a key daily meal starting Saturday,
causing some to forgo a hot breakfast and others to work six-plus hours without
refueling on cooked food, according to Marines at the base and Marine Corps
officials.
The midnight
ration service — known there as “midrats” — supplies breakfast to Marines on
midnight-to-noon shifts and dinner to Marines who are ending noon-to-midnight
work periods. It’s described as one of the few times the Marines at
Leatherneck can be together in one place.
The base,
which is located in Afghanistan’s southwestern Helmand Province, flanked by
Iran and Pakistan, also will remove its 24-hour sandwich bar. It plans to
replace the dishes long offered at midnight with pre-packaged MREs, said Marine
Corps Lt. Col. Cliff Gilmore, who has been deployed in Afghanistan since
February.
The moves,
though unpopular with many Marines on the ground and their families back home,
are emblematic of the massive drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan and the
dismantling of U.S. military facilities. More than 30,000 U.S. service members
will leave Afghanistan in coming months as the U.S. prepares to hand
responsibility for security to Afghan forces in 2014.
While no
Marine at Camp Leatherneck agreed to speak on the record, many are privately
angry about the hit on base morale.
“This boils
my skin. One of my entire shifts will go 6.5 hours without a meal. If we need
to cut back on money I could come up with 100 other places,” one
Leatherneck-based Marine wrote in an email this week to his wife and shared
with NBC News. (The Marine declined to speak on the record.) “Instead, we will
target the biggest contributor to morale. I must be losing my mind. What is our
senior leadership thinking? I just got back from flying my ass off and in a few
days, I will not have a meal to replenish me after being away for over 9
hours.”
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