Key background
The USS Abraham Lincoln, which functions as a mobile air base at sea, left its homeport in San Diego on Nov. 21 for a routine Pacific deployment. The carrier was redirected to the Middle East in January, ahead of the U.S. and Israel’s attacks on Iran, and has been stationed in the Arabian Sea ever since. The crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln has stepped foot on land only two days since leaving San Diego, according to independent military publication Stars and Stripes—one in Guam in December (where many sailors were not allowed to disembark) and one re-stocking stop in Oman in July, where sailors who could leave the ship were restricted to a secure compound within the port. Officials have been unable to tell families when the Lincoln will return home and one veteran told Stars and Stripes “uncertainty” over when a deployment will end can take a “significant toll” on servicemembers. One wife told the outlet her husband had texted her saying “he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow,” and one parent told the outlet their sailor son reported “he and his shipmates constantly think about jumping off the ship just for relief.” The Navy Times, an independent news outlet that covers the U.S. Navy, reported multiple servicemembers have attempted to jump from the carrier and Stars and Stripes also reported on thwarted suicide attempts onboard. Rep. Mike Levin,D-Calif., has said servicemembers are dealing with inhumane physical conditions on the ship and Rep. Jason Crow ,D-Colo., has warned the mental “strain on our service members and their families is building week by week.”
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CRUCIAL QUOTE
“Moldy showers, broken toilets, laundry down for weeks, long stretches with no hot water, a meal that came down to half a cup of rice and two tortillas,” Levin said of life aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. “No soap, deodorant or toothpaste.”
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BIG NUMBER
Six months. That had been the modern-day standard deployment for the Navy’s carrier strike groups, but too few in service and too many hotspots have led to increasingly long terms. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest and most advanced aircraft carrier ever built, holds the modern deployment record of 326 days at sea. Its deployment ended in May.
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further reading
ForbesLong Deployments May Be The Norm For The U.S. Navy’s Aircraft CarriersBy Peter Suciu