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The US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln spent more than nine months deployed to the Middle East. During that stretch, reports repeatedly emerged of sailors attempting to jump overboard to take their own lives. The military initially denied any crisis. But one week after the story broke, the Lincoln finally set sail for home on August 20.
The deployment traces back to the joint US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran in February this year. That operation triggered more than half a year of war in the Middle East. The Lincoln was originally stationed in the Pacific. It was urgently redeployed to support a military campaign single-handedly provoked by Washington, and it ended up away for a long nine months.
When reporters pressed Trump on August 14 over whether the deployment had run too long, he set off a firestorm with a single remark: "Not nearly long enough." He claimed a retired Navy admiral had privately told him the Lincoln was "in great shape." He dismissed reports of the dire conditions as fake news hyped up by CNN.
The comments immediately drew public fire from Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a Democratic governor and himself a veteran. Moore said Trump's response "pisses me off." A president who has never been to the battlefield, he argued, should show more compassion for families willing to offer up their loved ones to defend the country.
What the families never saw coming is that the Lincoln's return to San Diego may prove only a brief stopover. The Navy has internally confirmed that the carrier's homeport will be permanently relocated to Bremerton, Washington. Families have a window of just 58 days to pack up and move north. The exact moving date remains undisclosed.
Nine-Month Deployment Sets Post-Vietnam Record
The Lincoln (USS Abraham Lincoln) departed San Diego, California on November 21 last year. It was originally due to end its deployment in late May this year. Instead, it did not begin the journey home until August 20. That clocks 272 days at sea, more than 200 of them without calling at a standard port. The carrier made only brief stops in Guam last December and in Oman this July.
Analysts say the deployment sets a new record for the longest continuous US aircraft carrier deployment since the Vietnam War. Around 5,000 sailors and Marines are aboard. The carrier was originally assigned to the Pacific before being rerouted mid-deployment to the Middle East to support US military operations against Iran.
US military outlets Stars and Stripes and Navy Times broke the story in mid-August. Sailors aboard the Lincoln, they reported, were facing food shortages, poor sanitation and utter physical and mental exhaustion. Some had even attempted to jump into the sea.
Accounts circulating online were even more vivid. One family member quoted a text message from a sailor that read, "I hope I don't wake up tomorrow." Other reports claimed at least six sailors had tried to jump overboard. None of these details have been officially confirmed by the US side. For now, it is difficult for outsiders to separate fact from fiction.
CENTCOM Denies Rumors of Seven Deaths
US Central Command (CENTCOM) pushed back in a statement on August 14. There had been no fatal brawls among sailors and no seven deaths as rumored, it said. It described the related reports as grossly inaccurate.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking during a visit to Panama, said reporting by The Wall Street Journal and others was "completely misrepresented." He stressed that the US military has the capacity to maintain its maritime blockade of Iran "indefinitely." Ship rotation plans, he said, had long been in place and had nothing to do with recent coverage.
Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao said in a statement on August 20 that the Lincoln had "crushed their deployment". The carrier would return home as scheduled under the rotation plan, he said. He gave no firm arrival date.
CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper boarded the carrier in person earlier this month. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he revealed that he had personally told the crew "you're going home." He praised the entire ship's company for an outstanding performance through a grueling deployment.
Veteran Recalls Life Aboard a "Floating Prison"
Jonny Burnell, a retired Navy photographer who once spent 111 consecutive days aboard a carrier, told the BBC about his time on the USS Carl Vinson during the 2001 war in Afghanistan. He described the ship as a floating prison. Sailors working in the lower decks, he said, might never get the chance to go up on deck for air. They remain trapped for long stretches in an enclosed space. "There was one point where there was a visible kind of deadness in the shipmates' eyes," he recalled.
Cramped living quarters and harsh conditions aboard the ship pose an enormous test to sailors' physical and mental health.
Burnell also recalled one shipmate who did everything he could to break the rules. The sailor even dealt drugs and started an "underground rave club". His only goal was to get kicked off the ship.
Bunks on warships are often jokingly called "coffin racks" by sailors. Burnell said his own berth back then had no room even to turn over. The wall directly behind his pillow happened to be exactly where the arresting cables ran through when carrier aircraft landed. The noise never stopped.
Harold Kudler, former director of mental health policy at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, points out that the suicide risk among active-duty service members and veterans is 50 percent higher than that of the general public. The loneliness, boredom and hypervigilance that come with being cooped up at sea for long periods alternate with one another. That only compounds psychological problems.
It is worth noting that another US carrier, the USS George Washington, saw three sailors die by suicide within a single week in April 2022 while docked at a Virginia port. A report released afterwards by the military's oversight body stated bluntly: "collectively, Navy senior leadership, officer and civilian, let our standards slip — and in doing so we let our people down." The Washington has now arrived in the Middle East on August 19 to take over the Lincoln's combat mission.
The exhausted crew finally heads home. The nine-month deployment came at a heavy cost.
A high-profile military operation trumpeted as an "indefinite blockade" has, in the end, been brought to a close by a weary carrier that took months longer than planned to limp home. This war was single-handedly provoked by Washington. Yet nine months on, the first to break were the rank-and-file sailors trapped inside a steel hull.
