Servicemembers worldwide will dine on 152,626 pounds of turkey this Thanksgiving holiday, according to the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which outlined its massive Turkey Day menu in a recent news release.

Not much for the big bird? Military dining facilities will welcome 124,022 pounds of beef and 124,022 pounds of ham in time for the annual feast. All of the figures are well down from 2024, when a surge in troop presence in Europe resulted in DLA shipping nearly 700,000 pounds of festive food worldwide.

This year’s other hefty holiday offerings include:

• 38,081 pounds of shrimp
• 6,512 cans of sweet potatoes
• 15,282 cases of pies and cakes
• 792 cases of eggnog

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The federal shutdown didn’t affect meal plans, a DLA spokesman told Military Times, with much of the work done in advance of the funding lapse and Pentagon exemptions allowing operations to continue throughout October and into November.

Holiday History

President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer” came the year before an illustration in Harper’s Weekly showed Union soldiers celebrating Thanksgiving with a traditional wishbone break:

Army image

A Pentagon-produced history of the holiday outlines the different forms of support offered to servicemembers throughout generations, from Red Cross packages during World War I to special C- and K-rations during World War II. A Smithsonian piece offers more nods to menus past, including the 1918 Thanksgiving meal aboard USS Georgia (BB-15), which included traditional turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie … to go along with cigars and cigarettes.

Military food suppliers won’t have much time to celebrate – last year, they provided nearly 300,000 pounds of turkey, ham, and beef to dining facilities in time for Christmas.