SAILORS aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have attempted to go overboard as the carrier enters its ninth month at sea, the longest continuous deployment on record for an American aircraft carrier.
One went into the water last month and was recovered by helicopter, treated aboard and taken off the ship for further care.
Military publications report that several others considered doing the same, and relatives describe a mental health crisis building aboard.
Roughly 5,000 sailors and marines have been on the Lincoln since it left California in November for the South China Sea. It was redirected to West Asia before the war on Iran began at the end of February, and has since supported air strikes and the naval blockade of Iranian ports at the Strait of Hormuz.
The deployment was due to end in May. It has been extended repeatedly with no return date announced.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, of the Armed Services Committee, wrote to War Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao on Wednesday citing ‘shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns and disruptions in the mail system, which have caused many care packages on route to the ship to be lost in transit for months’.
‘These reports warrant immediate attention, but they also raise a broader question: whether the Navy can sustain the operational tempo now being demanded of its carrier force,’ he wrote.
A relative of one sailor said he had lost 65lbs since the deployment began, and confirmed that sailors had tried to jump. ‘He said, I’m dead tired. Dead,’ the relative said.
The sailor described engine noise and the vibration of aircraft landing and taking off, which never stops.
‘It’s not a vacation. And he knows what he has to do.
‘But it’s just without a port, without stepping foot on lands, without any kind of decompression.
‘It’s a constant vibration. Morning, noon, and night when you sleep, when you eat, when you shower. There’s never a moment of peace in your mind.’
Hegseth, speaking to reporters in Panama on Thursday, called the accounts ‘completely misrepresented’ and said the government was making sure ‘every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment’.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has demanded Hegseth’s dismissal, calling him ‘completely incompetent’.
