Apparently, the media is in an uproar over the fact that being aboard a Navy ship isn’t a Carnival cruise. To which an Afghan vet who lost both legs has four words: “How weak are you?”
The response was delivered on Fox News in response to a long-term to-do about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been at sea for over 250 days due to the conflict in the Middle East.
In April, photos of military meals began making the rounds on social media, first prompting concern:
Images of food being served to sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Tripoli, published by USA Today.
Supplies “are going to get really low” and “morale is going to be at an all-time low,” one sailor messaged his mother: https://t.co/di0KUEohvI pic.twitter.com/ZcuBNw1k8i
— Evan Hill (@evanhill) April 16, 2026
They were still a matter of concern after several media outlets made visits to the ship, including CNN, which acknowledged there had been some periods of gustatory malfunction, but that things had markedly improved.
From a report published Saturday:
Are sailors and the media overreacting to the quality of food during this long deployment?
Yes: 100% (2 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
At breakfast, our table had fresh fruit and vegetables — a recent development from the port visit. Iranian strikes had disrupted the supply chain through Bahrain early in the war, forcing a rationing period that sailors still talked about vividly and, then, a dearth of fresh food for many months. For a stretch, sailors told me, their meals were reduced to tuna mixed with noodles, or corn dogs. Several described losing significant weight.
By the time I arrived, that had eased. Food was plentiful, if not gourmet: 17,000 to 18,000 meals a day, largely from frozen stock, on a 14-day rotation sailors know by heart (“pizza day,” “burger day”), with morale-boosting events like ice cream socials. Young enlisted sailors still wait up to an hour in line for each meal — a grind that wears on people fast. Many told me they were dreaming of their first meal back home: Chinese food, Chipotle, a mother’s homemade bolognese.
One sailor, who messaged me after I left the ship, put it plainly: “Food has slightly increased in edibility, if I was asked a few months ago I would say a lot of people were losing weight due to the food.”
Joey Jones, a Fox News analyst who lost both legs in Afghanistan, went off on the idea that this was somehow a new development in military life.
“You know what I ate in Afghanistan for six months on a burner with using a little burner? I ate ramen noodles,” the former Marine said in a viral clip.
“I had to pull the seasoning packet out, because that’s too much sodium in it, and I put tuna packets in it. That’s what I ate. And you know what? I was happy to have it, because the alternative was an MRE or something cooked by the Afghan guy who was too stupid to be given a gun and they let him be the cook. And so if I wanted something spicy, test my fate a little bit, I’d go get a bowl of whatever he made in that giant urn thing that he had.”
“How weak are you on TV complaining about tuna and noodles? I’m sorry, you volunteered to serve your country,” Jones continued.
“You can come back and get out of the military and do like all of these Democrat veterans and complain about it and make commercials and be a sellout if you want to and come up with a new way of doing things.”
Not that it was any better under Democrat presidents, he was quick to point out.
“The last Democrat president that I remember that was deploying troops, Barack Obama, had the Army going to Iraq on patrol bases for 15 months at a time, eating MREs,” Jones said.
“I’m sorry, but you’re a sitting duck on a patrol base in Iraq, in Afghanistan, a heck of a lot more than you are on a fortified Navy ship sitting in the water. You might have got bored — and I’m sorry. We did have more fun getting in firefights. I’ll say that.”
“But to sit there and say that it was terrible because you had a ‘corn dog and a hot dog,’ I would have traded a block of C4 [explosive] to the Taliban for a hot dog by about July 2010.”
🚨 HOLY SMOKES. Marine Joey Jones, who deployed to Afghanistan and lost his legs there, just ERUPTED after the fake news amplified complaints about “food” and “conditions” on the Abraham Lincoln
“To SIT THERE and say that it was terrible because you had a ‘corn dog and a hot… pic.twitter.com/v2iGvsyQq3
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 15, 2026
“I’m sorry, but I just do not understand the mentality — if this is a representation of who our military is now, and I’m not saying it is, but there’s at least enough for some of these trash rags to print about it — if this is who we are, we’re just Rome sitting here waiting to burn,” Jones said. “We’ve got nothing left.”
And that’s the reason why this resonated: This isn’t really who we are. This is who the media would like us to think we are, but who we definitely aren’t as a fighting force.
Consider, for instance, this father of a sailor on the USS Lincoln:
USS Abraham Lincoln sailor dad:
“As some you may know my son, Casey, is a yellow shirt on the “ABE.” As such, he has one of the most dangerous and physically and mentally demanding jobs onboard the ship. The flight deck is non-stop. He has worked incredibly long shifts, with… pic.twitter.com/yk2WN8nxQn
— NOVA Campaigns (@NoVA_Campaigns) August 16, 2026
Then take publications like the U.K. Independent, who claimed Jones was now “under fire following a three-minute on-air outburst targeting service members deployed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln,” and then quoting the usual leftist social media voices calling him the weak one. You know, the guy who lost both legs serving his country.
Once upon a time, we had men serving in battle in World War II who would have found this food haute cuisine. To complain about tuna and noodles — and for our media to countenance those complaints as valid when these men and women signed up for the solemn duty to protect their country and its interests — is a sign of creeping decay, even if the vast majority of these individuals don’t whine to CNN and its ilk. No wonder Joey Jones is so disappointed.
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