WASHINGTON — Eight US Navy personnel assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during their lengthy deployment that included when the ships undertook combat operations against Iran, acting US Navy Secretary Hung Cao has revealed.Cao made the disclosure in a letter to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York on Tuesday in response to questions, following mounting concerns about the morale and mental health of the USS Abraham Lincoln’s crew.Cao said the number, which has not been previously reported, covers crew members from several ships that travel together, including the carrier. But he wrote that no service members had killed themselves during the deployment.The rate of suicide attempts among the Lincoln strike group’s sailors was roughly consistent with that of the entire active-duty Navy in 2024, the most recent year for which the Pentagon has released suicide data. That year, the Navy saw 356 suicide attempts among its estimated 337,000 active-duty sailors.“Since the beginning of Lincoln’s deployment, there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group,” Cao wrote to Gillibrand, a Democrat and member of the Senate Armed Services. “This number includes the Lincoln crew and sailors from the carrier airwing, strike group and destroyer squadron staff, escorting destroyers and all embarked aviation squadrons.”Between 6,000 and 7,000 US Navy sailors were deployed as part of the Lincoln strike group across roughly a half dozen ships — with the carrier kept out of port for over six months while conducting a high rate of combat operations against Iran.“Eight attempted suicides is incredibly high,” one US military official told CNN, noting recent carrier strike group deployments have had one or two per year. “The strain of combat ops is much higher than normal deployments.”“What Trump and Secretary Hegseth dismissed as ‘fake news’ turned out to be serious and deteriorating conditions for our service members,” Gillibrand said in a statement on Wednesday. “Our troops and their families make immense sacrifices every single day, yet the president dismissed them with open disrespect. That this administration can find endless taxpayer dollars for bombs, ballrooms, and billionaires, but cannot take care of our service members, is completely unacceptable.”The Lincoln deployed with various mental health resources onboard, including five chaplains, one embedded integrated prevention counselor, one psychologist, one clinical social worker, three behavioral health technicians and one expeditionary facility dog, according to Cao’s letter.Two sailors assigned to the Lincoln strike group had jumped overboard in recent months, but both were rescued, while others were prevented from jumping, according to reports from the Navy Times and Stars and Stripes.Sailors aboard the Lincoln described conditions unlike their prior deployments, largely due to the combat that has kept the carrier from making stops at friendly ports.
Keep Up to Date with our Weekly Newsletter
