#ManOverboard | #WhatTheyVotedFor
The
U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln is in such bad shape its crew is collapsing toward suicide.
Stars and Stripes↱ reports:
Family members and sailors say months at sea with no end in sight to a grueling Middle East deployment have intensified worries about mental health and the risk of self-harm aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln ....
.... In one case, a spouse tearfully told officials that she received a message that same day from her husband saying "he hopes he doesn't wake up tomorrow," according to one of the estimated 200 attendees at the San Diego town hall meeting ....
.... Interviews with active-duty sailors and family members, along with dozens of public social media comments and posts by crew members, describe sailors struggling with exhaustion and declining morale, including reports of suicidal thoughts and at least one instance where a crew member was prevented from jumping overboard.
Navy Times↱ tells us:
Annabelle Loma has spoken with her husband only a few times since he attempted to jump overboard from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during his current deployment.
Communication has been difficult to come by, and he is now on medical hold.
Loma, who lives in San Diego, said her husband had been repeatedly overextended before he tried to jump from the carrier.
"He's scared," Loma said. "He thinks he'll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out, his 13-year career is ruined, just like that. That's not fair, that's not right. That's not what he should be worrying about right now."
Loma said she initially received a call from the ship's ombudsman after the incident but has not heard from anyone with the Navy in recent weeks ....
.... In a separate incident aboard Lincoln, a sailor on watch saw a shipmate preparing to go overboard, and he intervened, according to the sailor's wife, Maria Rodriguez.
Rodriguez said her husband called out to the sailor before reaching the individual and grabbing their arms, pulling them onto the deck. Her husband told her the sailor had not yet gone over the side when he got there. Three other sailors heard the commotion and came running to help.
The Guardian↱ attempts to summarize:
Mike Levin, a Democratic member of congress from California, has sounded the alarm over conditions onboard the warship which is in its fifth month of combat operations against Iran. He described the lot of the crew on X as "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. No soap, deodorant, or toothpaste" ....
.... The current crunch has been months in the making. The warship left San Diego on 21 November and was originally intended for the Pacific but was redirected to the Middle East once the US-Israel war with Iran began.
Since then … the 5,000-plus crew has had only two days on land, in Guam in December and Oman in July. The deployment was scheduled to end in May but has been extended a couple of times amid the ongoing war.
In April there was a flurry of public criticism about dire conditions onboard the carrier. Photos emerged of poor quality and rationed food, and there were reports of water shortages, moldy showers and broken laundry machines.
Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, dismissed the accounts as "more fake news".
Levin responded to Hegseth's remark this week. He said: "These men and women signed up to serve their country. The least their country owes them is hot water, a working toilet, and a real meal. Hegseth cannot even manage that, and he has the nerve to look their families in the eye and call them liars."
I really don't know how these sailors are going to feel when they finally make it home and find out they lost the war. Again,
Stars and Stripes:
"My son is currently on that ship and listening to him say that he and his shipmates constantly think about jumping off the ship just for relief is so hard to listen to," one worried parent wrote to Stars and Stripes in July. "We are all tucked in at night in our beds at night meanwhile our loved ones are out there fighting with no understanding as to what they’re defending."
The petty politics, here, observe that of course it was conservatives who did this to the Navy. Of course it was the flag-waving patriot parade that brought this to bear. We understand this isn't what Trump voters expected inasmuch as the result itself ought to be unimaginable, but this is also how Republicans prove that government just doesn't work. It's what they voted for, at least according to the practical endorsement: They hired warmongers for peace, grifters to fight corruption, bourgeois business leaders for good jobs at good wages, and Republicans to cut the deficit.
And if we suggest that maybe they just didn't think this part through, it's also true that they hired white supremacists to try to cancel nonwhites. At some point, they either weren't really thinking any of it through, or else they were. Either way, the outcome they get is #WhatTheyVotedFor. And, altogether, it's a hell of a toll for a whoopsie.
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Notes:
Bath, Allison. "USS Abraham Lincoln families press Navy leaders over sailors’ mental health". Stars and Stripes. 11 August 2026. Stripes.com. 12 Augsut 2026. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us...mental-health-town-hall-meeting-22506344.html
Oliverio, Natalie. "Multiple USS Abraham Lincoln sailors have tried to go overboard amid extended deployment, families say". Navy Times. 11 August 2026. NavyTimes.com. 12 August 2026. https://www.navytimes.com/news/your...rboard-amid-extended-deployment-families-say/
Pilkington, Ed. "USS Abraham Lincoln sailors tried to jump overboard amid extended deployment – reports". The Guardian. 12 August 2026. Guardian.com. 12 August 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/12/uss-abraham-lincoln-overboard-extended-deployment
