ever met,” he says. “They’re focused
on skipping meals so that their kids
have something to eat. I take great
pride in the work that we do here,
but I take no pride in the fact that our
country stations families in San Diego
and doesn’t pay them enough money
to live in San Diego.”
But it’s not just San Diego. Records
from the Department of Defense re-
veal that during the 2018–2019 school
year, a third of children at DOD-run
schools on military bases in the United
States—more than 6,500 children—
were eligible for free or reduced
lunches. At Georgia’s Fort Stewart,
over 65 percent were eligible. Mazon, a
group that combats hunger, has found
that there are food pantries on or near
every military base in this country.
“There’s nothing wrong with going
to a food pantry when you need emer-
gency help,” says Josh Protas, Mazon’s
vice president of public policy. “But
there’s no reason that those who are
serving in the armed forces should
have to do that on a routine basis.”
For its part, the DOD sees the prob-
lem of food insecurity in the military
as being minimal. Troops are well
paid, they insist; there’s a subsidized
grocery store on each base; and
families can avail themselves of the
financial-literacy training the military
provides.
Desirée Mieir did seek financial
help from the military. She says
it didn’t help. “My husband and I
have taken advantage of resourcesavailable to us,” she says. “We’ve met
with financial counselors provided
by the military. We have done that
work.” And yet she and her husband
still barely scrape by.
Former Navy fire controlman Crys-
tal Ellison left food insecurity behind
only when she left the service. For
most of the 13 years she spent man-
aging complex weapons systems and
high-powered radars, she had to rely
on loans from her in-laws to feed her
family.
“I found it embarrassing,” she ad-
mits. “I felt like, you should be able to
provide for your family and not lean
on anybody else. That’s what you’re
supposed to do as an adult.” It was
especially difficult when she was a
junior sailor and the pay was lower.
“If you didn’t have enough money
saved up, you were definitely in the
hurt locker.”
Ellison is now in the private sector
and no longer struggling financially,In 2019, Feeding San Diego provided
2.3 million meals to military families.Reader’s Digest
82 april 2020