Why do prisoners get three meals a day, but the veterans meals are cut back to only two a day?

I ran across this in the late '60s at Eglin AFB. We had been allowing the brass to accumulate on our aircraft gunnery ranges in order to catch the brass thieves that would vandalize our facilities at the same time they were stealing brass. We eventually caught them and put them away, but then my men were expected to police up the brass as well as work the ranges - sometimes 14 hours/day.

My men were sometimes put on work details by the base commander in addition to their work on the gunnery ranges, so I tried to get a base detail to come out to help my men police up the brass. The base commander refused to give us a detail because he said that he had too much of a problem with retention as it was, and he didn't want to make it worse.

There was a Federal Prison on the base, so I then tried to get a prisoner detail to come out to the ranges to help. The prison refused because by regulations the prisoners could not leave the prison before 8 AM and they had to be back at noon for a hot meal, and they also had to be back in the prison by 5 PM for their hot dinner. Since it took an hour and a half or so to get out to the ranges they would not be able to get enough work done to be worth the effort.

I was unable to tell my men that they had to work 14 hour days and eat cold in-flight rats and do all the work themselves because prison regulations did not permit prisoners to be treated the way my men were treated on a daily basis.

You can't make this stuff up.

There are zero military bases that are going to a 2-meal a day plan (outside of weekends, when there have been 2-meals for over 30 years and the old timers can verify how far back that goes).

If you really feel strongly about it, commit a crime and get your three meals for free.

Sgt Joe LaBranche I had no ideal of this, good question, I can't say its sequestration, its just not right IMO.