POST-COLD WAR In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened to invade Saudi Arabia. When Iraq refused to withdraw despite an international naval blockade, war became imminent. Between November 1990 and January 1991, U.S. forces in the Middle East doubled to 440,000. President Bush spent Thanksgiving 1990 in the Persian Gulf with the American troops. The Gulf War opened in January with a series of air attacks known as "Operation Desert Storm." The February ground offensive resulted in the almost-immediate liberation of Kuwait. American troops are now stationed in many parts of the world. In addition to Thanksgivings celebrated by the troops at established bases both in this country and overseas, American forces involved in peace-keeping missions have spent recent Thanksgivings in places as diverse and as far from home as Haiti and Bosnia. Thanksgiving Proclamation 1991 Today, each of the four branches of the U.S. Armed Services (Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines) creates their own Thanksgiving day menus. But they all use the same recipes, created and tested by a centralized recipe development department at "Natick Labs." There are 1500 recipes and guidelines in the Armed Forces Recipe Service File which is maintained and developed by the food technologists at "Natick Labs" to meet the nutritional requirements and consumer preferences of the military population. The Thanksgiving menu of today remains surprisingly unchanged from those of the past. An analysis of 100 military menus, from 1917 to 1997 and from Boston to Saudi Arabia, show that 100% of the menus offer turkey, 98% offer dressing, 92% offer cranberry sauce, and 89% offer gravy. 96% of the menus offer pie, with 81% offering pumpkin pie. In the grand military Thanksgiving Day tradition, some things do remain the same! |
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Updated 18 May, 2005