Edited sentence: A-rations are claimed to be important for morale and have provided a rationale for the Army's contracting with civilian contractors such as Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to provide them, despite the fact that the military used to take care of its own food service needs with field kitchens.There have been accusations that the entire subcontracted ration system that was enacted within the past few years is just cronyism, an attempt to get the military to purchase from subcontractors (often in no-bid situations) what they used to handle themselves