October 8, 2026 — WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the USS Abraham Lincoln on Wednesday, praising the crew upon its return from a prolonged and arduous Iran war deployment during which multiple service members in the carrier strike group attempted suicide.
The nuclear-powered warship departed California in November 2025 for the South China Sea before being redirected to the Middle East prior to US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February. It remained at sea until a port call in Thailand in early September.
“What the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group accomplished, no other carrier strike group has ever done,” Hegseth said while addressing service members at sea in the Pacific. He cited “ten thousand sorties, 23,000 combat flight hours, almost 4,000 combat sorties” and announced a presidential unit citation for “extraordinary heroism against enemy forces.”
However, the extended deployment took a severe toll on personnel. In August, military families and lawmakers raised alarms over reported suicide attempts and food shortages aboard the carrier. Trump dismissed those claims at the time, while Hegseth insisted the situation had been “misrepresented.”
On Wednesday, Hegseth criticized press coverage, stating: “There were a few folks in the media who tried to turn the USS Abraham Lincoln into some sort of a symbol — a symbol of dysfunction, or a symbol of low morale, or a symbol of a failed mission.” He added: “It’s the exact opposite. The only reaction the American people and the American media should have is pride.”
Last month, the Trump administration confirmed in a letter to a lawmaker that eight suicide attempts occurred among Lincoln carrier strike group members, though none proved fatal. Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao’s letter detailed that a sailor assigned to an air wing “went overboard from the ship in early August” and was quickly recovered, while another sailor “attempted to go overboard in March and was stopped by his shipmates.”
The letter also acknowledged that while food supplies were “adequate,” limited resupply options during combat reduced “the number of main entree options” from “two to one for a short time.”
Jonathan Schroden, chief research officer at the Center for Naval Analyses, told AFP that carrier strike groups are generally designed for six-month deployments—a much shorter duration than the Lincoln’s deployment.
The Lincoln is not the only American carrier to encounter difficulties during extended operations: the USS Gerald R. Ford also suffered various problems during a recent 326-day deployment, including a laundry-room fire in March that injured two sailors and damaged roughly 100 beds, as well as significant reported issues with the ship’s toilet system.
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