That is the most retarded statement about Military is a federal employee and can't accept gifts. Federal employees in power can't accept gifts from the public. But people have sent soldiers "care packages" since the beginnings of war itself. The military mail system delivers these gifts to soldiers.
I take offense to your statement. That is how I was trained when I was in the Navy. Accepting gifts can show bias and can result in an IG investigation. Under no circumstances were gifts allowed from individuals. As far as CARE packages, perhaps the Navy does it differently. Our CARE packages consisted of only letters, but perhaps that was due to space considerations.