After nine at sea and in unhealthy conditions, the 5,000 sailors and soldiers aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, one of the largest aircraft carriers in the United States fleet, began their journey back to San Diego, the coastal city in southern California, this Thursday. To continue their mission in the Middle East, due to the Iran war, the Pentagon has deployed another aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington. This was announced on Sunday by Admiral Brad Cooper, head of the United States Central Command, in an opinion article published in The Wall Street Journal, and confirmed this Thursday by Administration officials.
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The deterioration of living conditions and the mental health of the crew aboard the aircraft carrier, which has not made a port call in over half a year – a new record of consecutive days at sea – has generated great controversy. Earlier this month, several Democratic lawmakers requested explanations from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth after specialized media Stars and Stripes and Navy Times revealed several attempts by crew members to jump overboard, information that the Pentagon has categorically denied.
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Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote a letter to Hegseth and Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao expressing his “serious concern” about the conditions of their troops. “There have been widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing problems, mental health deterioration, deck safety issues,” the Democratic senator listed in his letter. Additionally, there have been “interruptions in the mail system, causing many aid packages sent to the ship to be lost for months while in transit.”
The crew departed San Diego on November 21 of last year and has since spent 272 days at sea, except for stops in Guam and Oman to resupply. Their journey back home will keep them aboard for another four or five weeks, during which conditions could still worsen.
“Safe travels and enjoy your well-deserved reunion soon,” Admiral Cooper wrote in his opinion article. In a message along the same lines, the U.S. Central Command wished the Lincoln “fair winds and following seas” and reported this Thursday that the deployment of the USS George Washington was completed on Wednesday.
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The Pentagon has 20 warships deployed in the Middle East, where it maintains the naval blockade against Iran
With this, there are 20 warships deployed by the Pentagon in the Middle East, around the Persian Gulf, from where U.S. soldiers are enforcing the U.S. naval blockade imposed on Iranian ports last month.
Despite widespread reports about the living conditions on the Abraham Lincoln, including messages from its crew published by their families describing insecurity and unsanitary conditions, the Pentagon always denied the worst. Secretary of Defense Hegseth stated that the accusations were “completely distorted” and added that he was ensuring that “every ship, every crew, and every captain have everything we can provide them at all times.”
The situation generated intense scrutiny, especially from Democratic lawmakers. Among them, Senator Mark Kelly, who before entering politics was deployed aboard the USS Midway aircraft carrier as a naval aviator and participated in 39 combat missions in the Gulf War. “Reports from the USS Abraham Lincoln about multiple sailors attempting to jump overboard are disturbing. Long deployments are tough. They are much tougher when the mission is not well defined and there is no end in sight,” the senator posted on the social network X.
The crew set sail three months before the start of the joint U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran. Trump initially said it would be a two-week “excursion,” a period he later extended to “four or five.” But six months later Washington has not achieved any of its strategic objectives: the ayatollah regime remains standing and strengthened by its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, it has not definitively abandoned its nuclear program, and its allied militias maintain the capacity to attack U.S. and allied bases in the Gulf.
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