America's navy just confirmed a suicide crisis on its Iran war carrier
24 September 2026 · 24 September 2026Share
The USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) underway in the Atlantic Ocean during a strait transit exercise on 30 January 2019. File photo. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Clint Davis · Public domain
The US Navy just confirmed something huge.
Eight sailors tried to take their own lives on the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group. This happened during the ship's deployment to the war with Iran.
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao put it in writing. He sent a letter two days ago to Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democratic senator from New York on the Senate Armed Services Committee. His letter says quote "there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group".
And this isn't just about one ship.
The eight attempts span the whole strike group. That's the Lincoln's own crew, its carrier air wing, the destroyer squadron staff, the escorting destroyers, and the aviation squadrons flying off the deck.
No deaths. The Navy confirms all eight sailors survived.
But here's a detail that lands hard. A defense official told CBS News that two of those eight attempts happened during active fighting with Iran. Not during downtime. During combat.
So how long were these sailors even out there?
The Lincoln strike group left San Diego in November last year. The deployment was supposed to end in May. Then the war with Iran started in February, and it got extended.
CBS says the deployment ran more than nine months, with more than 250 uninterrupted days at sea this year alone. NBC News says the ship went 286 days without a single port call. The Washington Examiner says the carrier has now been at sea for more than 300 days in total.
About 7,500 service members are part of this strike group.
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Contains modified NASA ISS imagery showing the strategically important Strait of Hormuz separating the United Arab Emirates and Iran. File photo. NASA Johnson Space Center · Public domain
And here's the contradiction.
Before this letter came out, the Navy's public line was that there had been no rise in suicide attempts on the ship. It said sailors had counselors and chaplains available.
Kirsten Gillibrand says this letter proves that was wrong. She says quote "serious and deteriorating" to describe the conditions on board. She has also said that what Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, called fake news turned out to be true.
Cao's letter does deal with some of the other complaints coming off that ship. Sailors and their families have talked about food shortages, supply problems and broken plumbing.
Cao denies those problems were widespread. But he does admit some things. There were temporary local piping failures. Problems with the desalination units. And for a short time, hot meal options dropped from two down to one.
The letter also says there are five chaplains on board, plus several mental health professionals. Over the weekend, before he sent the letter, Cao posted a video on X. He said the Navy needs to confront what he called the rising tide of suicide. His wife April appeared in the video too, encouraging sailors to speak up.
So where is the ship now?
The Lincoln left the Middle East late last month, once the USS George Washington arrived to take over. It stopped in Thailand in early September. Now it's reached Guam, sailing on toward its home port of San Diego. Cao told Gillibrand the ship's exact schedule and return date are classified.
Here's what we still don't know. The full detail behind the other six attempts. Exactly how the Navy defines an "attempt" for this count. And why NBC's 286 days without a port call doesn't fully match the Washington Examiner's more than 300 days at sea — though the Thailand stop this month might explain some of that gap.
The Navy hasn't said whether any more attempts have happened since the letter was sent.
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