Donald Trump has sidestepped growing concerns about the dire circumstances onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, even as numerous reports emerge of sailors reaching their breaking points during a prolonged deployment tied to the Iran conflict.
Since departing San Diego last November, the USS Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by over 5,000 sailors and Marines, has been at sea for an unprecedented 250 days, redirected to bolster efforts in the Iran-related military operations.
Families of Navy personnel have voiced serious concerns over dwindling morale and rising instances of suicidal thoughts aboard the carrier. One particular account shared with Navy Times described a distressed sailor, exhausted to the brink, who attempted to leap overboard.
On August 3, a sailor attached to the carrier’s air wing entered turbulent waters wearing a life vest in an incident the Navy classified as a mental health crisis, as reported by CNN. Fortunately, a search and rescue helicopter managed to retrieve him from the ocean in under an hour.
Faced with the growing anxiety among military families regarding the situation on the carrier, the president dismissed these worries, stating unequivocally, ‘Well, no, that ship is moving. No, they’re not.’
‘That ship is moving right now, or very shortly, and it’s being replaced with another very similar ship,’ Trump added. The USS George Washington warship is now steaming toward the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln in a swap officials insist was already planned.
Asked whether the deployment had simply gone on too long, the president shot back: ‘No. Not nearly long enough.’
Since the start of Trump’s war, reports have surfaced of food shortages and rationing aboard the Lincoln, accompanied by grim images of sailors’ meals.
Donald Trump brushed aside mounting alarm over conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, even as accounts pile up of desperate sailors trying to go overboard during a record-shattering Iran war deployment
The Lincoln and its more than 5,000 sailors and Marines have spent over 250 days at sea
Since the start of Trump’s war, reports have surfaced of food shortages and rationing aboard the Lincoln, accompanied by grim images of sailors’ meals. These photos leaked earlier this year
Asked whether the deployment had simply gone on too long, the president shot back: ‘No. Not nearly long enough.’
Anxious family members also vented their anger to Navy leaders in San Diego last Thursday, according to Stars and Stripes.
One spouse reportedly said conditions aboard were so bad that her husband texted her saying ‘he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow.’
Another woman accused naval officials of breaking the ‘trust between us and the leadership’ by failing to be more transparent about their loved ones’ living conditions.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal and other lawmakers are demanding answers from Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth.
Lawmakers want a bipartisan congressional visit to the ship, while Hegseth has waved off the reporting as a complete mischaracterization.
‘Listen, we make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment,’ Hegseth told Newsmax on Thursday.
Eighteen US service members have died in Iranian strikes across the region since the war began in February, with hundreds more wounded.
US Central Command has pushed back hard, calling the reports of dire conditions aboard the carrier ‘false’ and insisting its crews ‘remain resilient and resolved.’
Retired Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, now a professor at Syracuse University, told Newsweek that extended Navy deployments can certainly lead to an increase in mental health challenges.
Most carrier deployments run about six months with port calls along the way to refuel and let crews rest on land.
Hegseth has waved off concerns about the USS Lincoln’s living conditions for troops as a complete mischaracterization
Amid these alleged conditions, the wife of the sailor who jumped off the aircraft carrier told MS Now she was kept in the dark about what happened.
She said her husband was in the water for an hour before he was rescued from what she described as a suicide attempt.
‘I think that it was handled very poorly because they didn’t inform me and they didn’t want me to know, and they’re just trying to cover this up,’ she said.
She shared her last text with her husband on July 21 in which he said life on the ship was getting to him.
‘I’m really trying to not feel negative or hopeless but between the wifi and not knowing when I will come home and not knowing what is happening back at home, it’s really getting me,’ he wrote in the message, noting that he had been due to leave on July 15 but the plan was canceled.
‘I don’t think I can do another deployment after this and i don’t even know if i can finish this deployment,’ the sailor added.