Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has said that concerns about conditions on board the USS Abraham Lincoln are “completely misrepresented”.
This comes after several reports about food shortages and an intensifying mental health crisis on the vessel, that has now been deployed for more than 200 days, after it was redirected to the Middle East to assist with the military operation in Iran.
“We make sure every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment,” Hegseth told reporters in Panama, where he was attending a military demonstration. “Some deployments are longer than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody. What they do in those high seas in those austere conditions with less port calls – it’s incredible.”
Two leading specialist military papers, the Navy Times and Stars and Stripes, are reporting that there have been multiple attempts by sailors to jump overboard as poor conditions and mental stresses on the Lincoln reach the breaking point.
On Wednesday, Democrats on the Senate armed services committee wrote to Hegseth and the acting secretary of the US Navy, Hung Cao, for more information abut what action is being taken to improve conditions on board.
“There have been widespread reports of 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 in route to the ship to be lost in transit for months,” Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, wrote. The senator noted that the USS Abraham Lincoln has not made a port call in over 200 days – setting a record for consecutive days at sea.
