Our Wasteful ‘Military’ Budget: The Pentagon Spent $1.5 Million Developing Roll Up-Beef Jerky

[Posteritatis]

3. Yeah, I'm okay with funding going towards stuff like that, esp. if it comes out of weapons funding

The funding ratio being skewed more directly towards the soldiers themselves would be a Good Thing anyway - rations, housing, health care, training, the works. I'm not sure what the ratio of funding directly pointed at the boots on the ground (or their equivalents in other branches) to the funding for flagship procurements, the more wacky R&D, etc., is, but I'd bet it could stand to be more reasonable.

"$1.5 million to try and improve rations for a military this size" isn't really something I can get worked up about - as you said, there's much, much bigger things that warrant some real anger in the defense budget. This isn't one of them; it's more like whining about fruit fly research.