Our civilian-military bond is cracked

On Tuesday, TMZ published a story with a dramatic all-caps headline, "PETE HEGSETH BLEW BILLION$ ON FRUIT BASKETS, LOBSTER," that was accompanied by a manufactured photo of the secretary of war surrounded by a bunch of plastic lobsters. The initial story was followed by several other "news" organizations repeating the claims. If you've never covered the military, or served in the military, or if you don't have any family or friends in the military, this would appear to be a shocking story. But it's not — not even remotely. It is a common practice for the Pentagon to provide these special meals, often known as "surf and turf Fridays," to our service men and women at least once a week. And this has been the case for decades. James Gagliano, a retired supervisory FBI special agent and a 1987 West Point graduate who deployed to Afghanistan in 2002-03, posted on X, "I enjoyed 'steak night' in Mess Hall every Thursday as a West Point cadet between '83 and '87. Highlight of the week." He added that during his deployment to Afghanistan, he "enjoyed steak and crab legs once a week when available in Mess Hall on Bagram Air Base. Was rare treat from typical MRE fare." It wasn't hard to prove this was indeed a normal occurrence, as someone who covered the military between 2005 until the drawdown. In 2009, when Robert Gates was the secretary of defense during the Obama administration, a reporter embedded with soldiers in Afghanistan detailed the experience: "The lobsters and crab legs are shipped from the United States and driven down on a refrigerated truck from Bagram. On seafood night, the crew serves up 400 of the tasty tails, 130 pounds of Alaskan King crab legs, and 135 pounds each of shrimp and scallops." And here is a story from RealClearPolitics investigations in 2024, when Gen. Lloyd Austin was the secretary of defense under then-President Joe Biden: "The military spent $103.7 million on meat, fish and poultry, including $16.6 million on ribeye steak and 147 orders of lobster tail for $6.1 million. Orders of blueberries, ice cream and doughnuts also exceeded $100,000." The lack of balance and context among journalists reporting the story is disappointing. But even if you've never covered the military, it takes less than 10 seconds to find context showing that this is standard procedure, instead of just framing the story as an extravagance and lack of character on the part of the secretary of war. Even worse, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who served on the House Committee on the Budget, posted: "Trump and Republicans took food assistance away from hungry children, working parents, and veterans while enjoying $93 billion of things like lobster and steak." It points to an even larger problem, not just on Capitol Hill but among reporters and civilians. Our relationship and understanding of our military, and military families, is broken. Why? When you have less than half of 1% of people in this country currently serving in our military, our understanding of their lives is both limited and isolated. This wasn't the only instance this week of not understanding basic military protocol. When Hegseth didn't salute an enlisted sailor, the internet went wild with theories that he didn't return the salute because the man was Black. But standard protocol is not to salute those enlisted who aren't wearing their hat or cover — which the sailor wasn't wearing. And even if he was wearing his cover, protocol requires saluting officers, not enlisted personnel. Hegseth did just that. Nonetheless, the post went viral with over 7 million views. A commentator on numerous news outlets, notably CNN, continued the lobster trope on Wednesday, claiming that Hegseth had purchased the steak and lobster tails for himself and not for the troops. A reporter could earn a lot of goodwill by doing a segment on that claim and saying, "We get things wrong sometimes, and we need to say so." So should members of Congress. As reporters, we have a responsibility to have a basic understanding of the men and women who serve our country, and to report on them accurately. You may or may not like who the current president of the United States is, but your obsessions should not turn something that is both normal and a show of gratefulness for our soldiers into an outrage just to satisfy your unhappiness.