As Americans gather for Thanksgiving feasts, soldiers at Fort Carson, Colorado, are contending with a far less festive reality -- months of insufficient meals, confusing schedules, and limited food options at the base's dining facilities that have ignited widespread frustration among the rank and file.

Dining facilities -- critical for sustaining the health and readiness of troops -- are reportedly offering fewer options, with some meals falling short of basic nutritional standards. Earlier this month, the issue was exemplified by a meal in which soldiers were served a single piece of toast and a handful of lima beans for dinner, according to one soldier stationed there who shared imagery of the meal. Even getting access to those limited rations can be hard, given confusing dining hall schedules and seemingly random closures that make it difficult for many to access hot meals.

Military.com's interviews with eight soldiers and review of photos from Fort Carson facilities found recurring problems. Food runs out quickly, and portions often fall short of the macronutrient requirements needed to sustain soldiers' demanding physical regimens, likely running afoul of service regulations on feeding requirements for troops. Some soldiers reported and shared photos of food that was undercooked or stored at dangerous temperatures.

"This has been a division-wide issue with the [dining facilities] on workdays and kiosks on the weekend," said one soldier stationed at the base, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press. "The people who deal with it the worst are the soldiers who live in the barracks and don't have a car."

The issue is twofold. Troops reported being served food that was either improperly prepared or unavailable by the time they reached the end of the line. Kiosks, intended to replace dining facilities in some circumstances with grab-and-go options, are frequently empty, particularly during peak times when soldiers finish their shifts.

When kiosk shelves are stocked, they're often filled with chips, sugary snacks and other items that soldiers say fall short of the nutritional standards required to maintain physical fitness as demanded by their jobs. Frustration over food issues has prompted some unit leaders to instruct troops to document the issue, capturing photos of the low-quality food or barren shelves to escalate concerns to higher-level leadership, though it's unclear what official complaints have been filed.

"We recognize that we've had some challenges with consistency in the quality of our soldiers' dining experiences at our warrior restaurants and kiosks," Lt. Col. Joseph Payton, a base spokesperson, said in a statement to Military.com. "We're committed to ensuring our soldiers receive quality and healthy meals and can take full advantage of their meal benefit they are entitled to receive."

Payton added that the issue has been brought to brigade-level leadership, which is investigating methods to boost the quality of food options for soldiers.

Fort Carson has 4,600 meal card holders, mostly junior enlisted soldiers who would normally rely on the dining facilities for meals. In most cases, barracks do not have cooking appliances, and soldiers are generally forbidden to have kitchen tools such as hot plates. Other food options, which soldiers would have to pay for, are mostly less healthy fast food restaurants such as Pizza Hut, Dunkin' Donuts and Arby's.

In 2024, the base served food to 591 soldiers on average each day, according to data provided by the service. That number also includes meals purchased and consumed by non-meal card holding troops -- meaning the raw percentage of junior soldiers living on base who use the dining facilities may be in the single digits some days.

Compounding the frustration is the financial strain hunting for alternative food options can cause for troops. Soldiers contribute an average of $460 per month from their Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS), a mandatory deduction that collectively totals approximately $22 million annually at Fort Carson. However, the base's food budget this year was just $5 million. How the remaining funds are allocated remains unclear. A 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office found that the Army does not adequately track how often its food services are used by service members.

Some Army officials have pointed to soldiers using dining facilities less and less in recent years as driving decisions to cut spending. It has produced something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, with less investment in quality food and infrastructure pushing even fewer soldiers to see those food options as viable -- despite automatically paying for that food out of their paychecks.

Soldiers have reported waiting in line for up to 30 minutes at Fort Carson dining facilities, only to be served small portions that fall far short of a full meal. In one instance, a soldier recounted being handed just a small bowl of soup and an apple.

On Hots & Cots, a Yelp-style platform where soldiers review barracks and dining options, complaints about food quality and availability at Fort Carson are significantly higher than at other installations, according to the app's internal data.

However, the issue is not isolated to Fort Carson. Last year, Military.com reported on similar struggles at Fort Cavazos, Texas -- in which junior enlisted soldiers had few options for food as the garrison struggled to juggle a severe shortage of food service workers. Soldiers also frequently report issues with undercooked food or inconsistent dining facility schedules on Reddit and other social media.

Senior officials have often pointed to difficult logistics in mapping out how much food to supply soldiers and getting them quality nutrition. However, it's unclear why those challenges have persisted in the force for years.

"Are we gonna fumble? Yes, but we're learning," Renee Mosher, deputy chief of staff, G4 HQ Army Materiel Command, which oversees logistics for the force, said when asked about food issues at Fort Carson in October at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference in Washington, D.C.