San Diego Navy families strain under Lincoln's long deployment
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The San Diego-based aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln sails through the Arabian Sea in May. Photo: Courtesy of U.S. Navy
As the San Diego-based aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln nears nine months of deployment, including an unprecedented stretch at sea, the weight of it all keeps getting heavier for sailor families here.
The big picture: The deployment’s blistering length has included a record-setting 240-plus days at sea without a normal port call, leaving the 5,000-plus sailors run ragged and lacking adequate food and supplies at times, according to multiple news outlets.
- That stress spreads to their families, who are worrying about them back home in San Diego.
Even during peacetime, deployments are stressful. And this is the furthest thing from a peacetime deployment.
- The carrier and its sailors are at the tip of the spear in America’s war against Iran, which means even longer hours and less downtime.
- Reports last week suggest fellow carrier USS George Washington is now on its way to relieve the Lincoln, but that could take weeks and the Lincoln’s return date has not been announced.
One San Diego spouse of a sailor aboard Lincoln told Axios she’s worried exhaustion could cause the crew to make mistakes that put their safety at risk. She spoke with Axios on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal against her husband.
- “I can't imagine working basically for nine months straight, and being expected to perform at my best,” she said.
Threat level: At least one sailor has gone overboard, and the Military Times reported that other crew members have also tried.
- Lawmakers have called for investigations into the conditions on the carrier.
Friction point: President Trump and other leaders have said that there’s nothing wrong with the deployment length and that this is what service members signed up for.
- Trump told a reporter last week that he didn't think the ship had been deployed "nearly long enough."
- “Our force and their families are not victims,” acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said in a statement. “They are the epitome of American strength and resilience.”
- Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the conditions on the carrier have been “completely misrepresented.”
The Navy spouse said Lincoln's wartime deployment "is absolutely not what these people signed up for, but they're doing it anyway."
- "They are still showing up to do their jobs and do it well," she said. "I think that's really something to be respected."
All at-sea deployments are hard, but Lincoln’s relentless operations with no end in sight have been particularly demoralizing, Brad Martin, a retired surface warfare officer who spent two-thirds of his 30-year career at sea, told Axios.
- There is “constant tension and ungodly heat, even in air-conditioned spaces on the ship,” said Martin, now a senior policy researcher at the RAND think tank. "Flight deck heat in the Arabian Sea in July is not to be minimized."
- “There’s little opportunity for some of the things that improve morale and, perhaps most difficult, considerable uncertainty as to when it will all be over,” he added.
Flashback: The Lincoln left San Diego in November. The spouse said she first realized this was going to be a different type of deployment early this year, when it was diverted to the Middle East.
- Supply problems on board followed the start of the Iran war earlier this year, according to The New York Times, as Iranian attacks damaged a key base in the region that supported the carrier.
Then this summer, a second deployment extension was announced with no end date, which the spouse said took a particularly brutal toll.
- She’d been through deployments before, but hadn’t had one with no approximate end date.
- “You need those milestones of life at the end of the tunnel through deployment to help keep you motivated as a spouse, and I think the sailors feel the same way,” she said. “Without that, it becomes more of a mental challenge to keep enduring a deployment.”
That uncertainty becomes a mental marathon for Lincoln’s sailors too, Martin told Axios.
- “If you can count the days, that’s one thing,” he said. “If it’s completely unknown when relief might come, that can be extremely difficult. Particularly if there’s a family involved.”
- “My very hardest deployment was when mail was delayed and my new wife was convinced that I wasn’t sending her letters,” he added.
The Navy spouse told Axios she’s had stretches of multiple weeks with no communication from her husband, and then could only email for little more than a month, though that's improved recently.
- Her husband is really tired, but he told her the crew is resilient and is proud of their work, she said.
Last week the Navy hosted tense town halls for families, according to Stars and Stripes.
- A spouse said at the meeting that she had received a message from her husband saying “he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow,” the outlet reported.
- The spouse who spoke to Axios said support is there, but she thinks organizations should be more proactive.
Navy officials did not respond to Axios' questions about support services for families by deadline.
What’s next: The spouse said she and her husband have no big plans for when he finally walks down Lincoln’s brow and is home safe again.
- “It's changed so many times, we keep making plans and then having to cancel them,” she said. “So right now we're just going to figure it out when he gets home.”