Plague Monk says the sailors on the USS Lincoln were served moldy food. I want to set the record straight. The source of that “fact” was a story published by USA Today. Take a look:
That picture is a crop from this photo:
A few things that are important to note: Navy ships don’t have cinderblock walls. They don’t have drop ceilings in the enlisted mess (some officer messes do and the chief’s mess does, but this isn’t the officer mess, the tables are wrong). There is no bullseye on any of the walls. Note how the only two people visible in this photo aren’t wearing military uniforms. This isn’t from the USS Lincoln. It’s fake news ragebaiting bullshit.
In the Navy, the commanding officer and the embarked admiral get the best food. On a carrier, they don’t eat with the officers. He has a private mess, and he can’t eat in the wardroom without permission for reasons I will soon explain.
Next down are the chief petty officers (E7 through E9). They get great food. For example, the rest of the crew gets Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, and Special K. The chiefs get Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, and Apple Jacks. I used to find reasons to sneak own there and pilfer cereal from the Chief’s storeroom. One of my favorite tricks was to pull the fuses on the lights to their storeroom and show up to fix it with a tool bag. Once I wasn’t being watched, I would stuff the bag with all the food I could fit in it. Here is a pic of the Chief’s chow line. Note the food looks great, and they eat on real plates. There is also a battle lantern and a first aid kit on the bulkhead:
The officers are paid BAS, and pay for their food out of their own funds via payroll deduction. That’s why the CO and Admiral can’t eat there. It isn’t their food, that food belongs to the officers.
Here is the chow line for enlisted sailors (E6 and below). Note the woman getting fed. Does she look hungry or malnourished? This is how food is served on Navy ships- a line, and they give you as much or as little as you want. If there is an actual plate looking empty, that is because the person getting the food didn’t ask for more. Note the plate, electrical boxes, and piping and ductwork in this photo.
Here is the dining area. Note the plates again. There isn’t a divided plate in sight. Any photo you see where the Lincoln food is supposedly on divided trays is fake. See the bulkheads? Piping, wiring, no drop ceiling. Look at the light fixtures. Those are sealed against water, because it’s a ship. As an Navy electrician, I repaired thousands of those in my 6 years of service- the ones pictured are authentic. There is an officer in this photo wearing a flight suit. He is a Captain, likely the Commander of the Air Group (CAG), because this dinner is for a Mother’s day celebration.
This is what Navy ships look like, and any photo that doesn’t look like this is a fake.
12 Comments
Toastrider · September 27, 2026 at 11:29 am
Nice catch, DM. Although (C)USA Today will never acknowledge it.
I wonder where the pic comes from. I will note that Google Image search does state ‘it is falsely attributed to being an image from the Lincoln’ (paraphrasing on my part). But it’s heavily circulated, once again proving that a lie travels round the world before the truth can get its shoes on.
Judging from the cinderblock walls and sparse decor, I suspect it’s a low-sec correctional facility. Or maybe a school cafeteria.
Knolli · September 27, 2026 at 12:44 pm
What is the difference? 🙂
Barbarus · September 27, 2026 at 2:04 pm
It’s not a simple crop from the wider image. Apart from the blob of meat looking stuff on the wraps in the wider image, the perspective is slightly different, there is some floor showing where the other image has another table, and there are different reflections and shadows in various places. Either it’s another photo from the same time and place or someone is faking something. People have suggested that the star logo at the bottom right indicates AI although Google image search is not very definite about that.
Divemedic · September 27, 2026 at 2:31 pm
Food is the same.
Rick T · September 27, 2026 at 3:25 pm
Ships in the surface fleet (and especially aircraft carriers) have enough space for multiple galleys and eating spaces. Subs have ONE galley that serves both the wardroom and crew’s mess so we all ate the same food. It really gave the cooks, leading MS, and the Supply Officer incentive to do the best job. I recall us starting to run low on Coke syrup one run and the Engineer (who lived on Coke and Snickers bars) about came unglued (according to rumint from the mess cooks) when the Suppo told the Captain.
I was an Engineering puke, I have no idea how they handled the issue of officers paying for their own food out of their BAS.
MM1(SS)
Divemedic · September 27, 2026 at 4:00 pm
Perhaps submarine officers didn’t? I think the reason they do it on carriers is a huge chunk of the officers on a carrier are from shore based squadrons who are technically only temporarily embarked on the carrier for deployments and certain workups.
When I was on a carrier, we had just over 3,000 ship’s company. The other 3,000 we had aboard for deployments were from the 9 squadrons of the Carrier Air Wing. Since they were embarked, they didn’t participate in drills or any anything we did. When we would do GQ drills, the squadron personnel who were sleeping would complain we were too loud and it kept them awake.
Tom from East Tennessee · September 28, 2026 at 10:11 am
Back in the 80s and 90s, submarine officers also paid for their own food on the ship. In port the cooks would keep a paper attendence record for each meal and you got billed for the meals eaten in the wardroom. Underway, you just got charged 3 meals a day whether you ate 2 meals or all 4 on a day. You got the bill at the end of the underway and had to pay it before you could get off the ship.
Old Maine Farmer · September 27, 2026 at 5:00 pm
Is it my bad eyesight or do the folks eating on the carrier for Mother’s Day look mostly like inflatables? Are they making the hallways wide enough? Anyway no one looks like they are starving.
Unknownsailor · September 27, 2026 at 5:06 pm
I was on 4 different Nimitz class, and I can instantly identify which mess deck compartment is in any photo of sailors eating meals, or even which mess line is shown. They are all roughly the same on each ship, with the only differences being where the drink machines are, or other installed pieces of equipment.
Nimitz class has two galleys for E-6 and below, forward and aft. Aft is ran by cooks assigned to the ship, and is bigger. It also has the bake shop, and vegetable prep. Forward is ran by the cooks assigned to squadrons, and it is the “speed” line. Stuff like hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and fish sticks are served up forward.
The various galleys have a pecking order, as it were, and all of them take the same food as input. The difference is in how many people they serve, and the time and skill the cooks have to prepare for meals. Flag mess serves the battle group commander and his staff, so they cook for few people, and consequently have more time to do things right. The Captain’s mess, same deal, fewer people to cook for, so better results. Officer’s mess and the Chief’s mess is not quite as good, but they still have far fewer people to cook for. Chief’s mess is not an open mess anymore, Divemedic, they can’t go out and buy food on their own anymore, too many of them were busted for embezzling funds, and that option was taken away from them. Now they get the same food as everyone else. The cooks still don’t have as many people to cook for, however, so they can take more time to get things right.
The regular crew mess is serving hundreds per meal, so that is where you get the worst results.
Cooking skill is also variable, with the flag mess and captain’s mess taking the best of the cooks, and the regular crew mess having the “worst”.
I worked nights on most of my deployments, which means 1900-0700 every day, and I have seen really crappy chow for midrats, which is the night shift equivalent of lunch. This is because midrats is served leftovers from the day’s already prepared meals. The Eisenhower (CVN-69) put out nachos for midrats once, when I was there on a detachment in 2005. The ship had just came out of RCOH, which is the 5 year long reactor refueling and overhaul process, and the cooks were not used to feeding the crew 24/7 yet, so nachos was all they could do.
The big issue the Navy is facing right now is that it relies on Military Sealift Command heavily for logistics, and MSC is short the hulls it needs to operate a long distance supply line. Without bases in 5th fleet to obtain stores from, the MSC has to go to Diego Garcia and Singapore to get food, and those are long ways away from where the carriers are operating. This has been an issue since the mid 1990s, and the Navy has let it simmer.
Divemedic · September 28, 2026 at 12:09 pm
I discussed that in this post:
https://areaocho.com/navy-food/
oldvet56 · September 27, 2026 at 6:46 pm
Having served on a ffg which i mess cooked and two submarines i simply cannot remember a time i was unhappy with the food. Yes it was better on the subs but still good on the ffg.
dc · September 28, 2026 at 2:01 pm
Agreed. I was on the EL-Rod, Simpson and Halyburton, Food was equally great on the FFG-7’s.
Comments are closed.