Eight sailors from the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during a stretch that overlapped with the group’s combat operations against Iran.
However, reports of deteriorating living conditions and poor mental health on board the carrier have made headlines in the US, provoking criticism of President Donald Trump’s war against Iran. We take every service member’s well-being seriously and have religious, medical and mental health professionals available to assess and address concerns as they arise. President Trump junked claims that family members were concerned about the welfare of their relatives and dismissed the possibility that the deployment had been too long.
The USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed in the Middle East for more than 260 days, supporting US combat operations against Iran, and has set a modern US Navy record for the longest uninterrupted time at sea without a port visit, according to the Associated Press. Between 6,000 and 7,000 US Navy sailors were deployed as part of the Lincoln strike group, the CNN reported.
Cao said no service members had killed themselves during the deployment. “Since the beginning of Lincoln’s deployment, there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group,” said the letter from the navy secretary. “There have been no suicides onboard during this deployment,” it added. In a response to CNN earlier, the Navy said: “We have not observed an increase in suicidal ideations or attempts aboard the ship. “Not nearly long enough,” he told reporters.
