The Army is turning 240 this year, and like anyone celebrating a birthday in the three figures, it has combined an elaborate cake with elaborate delusions. This official photo is from the 240th Army Birthday Capitol Hill Cake Cutting Ceremony at the U.S. Capitol Visitors’ Atrium.

Typical of the Army’s bad ideas, operation birthday cake is poorly designed, sloppily executed, and plastered over with shiny stuff. That streamer on the left? It’s celebrating Operation New Dawn, the part of the Iraq war where we left. (Frankly, I would have expected the Army to power on through and put Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom on there anyway, because fuck it; instead, they’ve chosen to remind everyone that the only thing we could possibly celebrate about Iraq is our withdrawal.)

Just for fun, because the military apparently loves cake, here are some other cakes they have had and eaten, too, in the last month or so.

Everyone loves cake!

Update : A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that the Division symbols were not in numerical order.

[All images courtesy of Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System.]