EDITORIAL NOTE
This article is based on reporting from Reuters, Stars and Stripes and Military Times, along with statements from the Navy and a letter from Sen. Richard Blumenthal to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao. Reports involving attempted self-harm aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln come from sailors and family members; the Navy has not provided a precise number of incidents and says it has not identified an increase in reported suicidal ideation or suicide attempts. Where the Navy disputes, qualifies, or says conditions have improved, that is included here too. Reuters | Military Times
Pete Hegseth says reports about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have been “completely misrepresented.” Fine. That’s an awfully easy thing to say when you’re standing at a microphone in Panama, and a much harder thing to defend when sailors and their families have spent weeks describing exactly what they say has been happening aboard that ship. Reuters
So I have a simple question for the Secretary of Defense: Which part? Which report is wrong? Which sailor is lying, which spouse misunderstood, which shortage never happened, and which condition has been invented by reporters? Because “misrepresented” isn’t an explanation. It’s a word you use when you’d rather move on to the next question.
The Lincoln left San Diego on November 21, 2025, for what was expected to be a roughly seven-month deployment. It was redirected to the Middle East, where its crew has supported combat operations against Iran, and the deployment stretched well beyond its expected May end with no publicly announced return date. Blumenthal says the ship had been deployed for more than 250 days and had gone more than 200 days without a port call. Blumenthal
That matters because these aren’t people sitting in cubicles waiting for somebody to fix the air conditioner. An aircraft carrier is an industrial city surrounded by ocean, filled with jet fuel, weapons, nuclear propulsion systems, heavy machinery and aircraft being launched and recovered around the clock. Fatigue aboard one isn’t merely unpleasant; eventually it can become a safety issue for everyone standing next to the exhausted guy. Blumenthal
I spent four years in the Air Force, and I’m not going to insult anyone who served by pretending military life is supposed to resemble a Carnival cruise. Hard deployments happen. Long hours happen, shitty food happens, plans change and people get sent places they’d rather not be. But there’s a difference between asking people to endure hardship because the mission requires it and deciding every complaint about how they’re being treated can be waved away as fake news.
WHEN THE FAMILIES START TALKING, LISTEN
Stars and Stripes interviewed active-duty sailors and family members who described exhaustion, deteriorating morale and fears about self-harm. Roughly 200 family members attended a San Diego meeting with senior Navy leadership, and one spouse told officials that her husband had sent her a message saying he hoped he wouldn’t wake up the next day. Navy officials emphasized the mental-health resources available aboard the carrier and said additional professionals were being sent, according to attendees. Stars and Stripes
That alone ought to move this conversation beyond whether sailors are getting enough fresh vegetables. A spouse doesn’t bring something like that into a meeting with the Acting Secretary of the Navy because her husband had a lousy Tuesday. When families start telling military leadership that they’re watching people they love lose hope, the appropriate response isn’t a communications strategy.
A NOTE FROM OFF SCRIPT
If you’re getting something out of Off Script, subscribe. It helps fund the reporting and research behind everything I publish.
Military Times went further. Annabelle Loma told the publication that her husband attempted to jump overboard during the deployment and was subsequently placed on medical hold. In a separate reported incident, another sailor’s wife said her husband intervened when he saw a shipmate preparing to go overboard and physically stopped the sailor from doing it. Military Times
The Navy has not publicly supplied a count of self-harm incidents aboard the Lincoln. It responded that the command had not identified an increase in reported suicidal ideation or suicide attempts. Read that sentence carefully, because it does not say the reported incidents didn’t happen. Military Times
That distinction is doing a lot of work. “We have not identified an increase” is a statement about a trend, not a denial of an event. If Hegseth believes reporters have falsely portrayed what happened aboard the ship, he has every right to challenge them — but then challenge the facts, not the existence of journalism.
SOME OF THE PROBLEMS WERE REAL, AND THE NAVY KNOWS IT
Sailors and families also described earlier food rationing, water shortages, laundry problems, disrupted mail, and long stretches without the kind of port visits that give crews time away from the ship. Stars and Stripes reported that several of those problems have since largely been resolved, mail service has improved, and the Navy says sailors currently have clean water, working air conditioning, and two protein choices at meals. That belongs in the story because the truth doesn’t stop being useful when it complicates the headline. Stars and Stripes
The Navy also has a legitimate explanation for some of the logistical trouble. The Lincoln has been operating in a contested environment where normal supply hubs have been disrupted, forcing the service to prioritize food and other mission-essential supplies ahead of things like hygiene products and mail. A brief stop in Oman provided fresh food and some shore access, although sailors who were allowed off the carrier were restricted to a secure compound. Stars and Stripes
That context matters. It does not erase the conditions that came before it.
In fact, acknowledging that the Navy has fixed some problems makes Hegseth’s blanket dismissal harder to understand. You generally don’t fix problems that never existed. If water shortages, laundry failures, supply trouble and mail disruptions were addressed, then reporting that they occurred wasn’t necessarily “misrepresentation.” It was reporting what happened before somebody finally fixed it.
THERE’S A BIGGER PROBLEM HIDING ON THAT FLIGHT DECK
Blumenthal’s letter raises the part of this story that could outlive the Lincoln deployment. He isn’t only asking what went wrong aboard one carrier; he wants to know whether the Navy is asking more of its carrier force than the current fleet and its crews can sustainably provide. His letter points to extended deployments as a possible emerging pattern rather than an occasional wartime exception. Blumenthal
The USS Gerald R. Ford, Blumenthal noted, recently spent 326 days at sea before returning home in May. Now the Lincoln has been stretched far beyond its original schedule while the United States maintains a major naval presence around Iran. Eventually the question stops being whether sailors are tough enough and becomes whether Washington has built military commitments that require those sailors to be tougher than the system was designed to demand. Blumenthal
That’s not a soft-hearted question. It’s a readiness question.
Every extra month at sea affects people, equipment, maintenance schedules and whatever mission comes next. You can squeeze more work from a carrier strike group today, but you don’t get to pretend the bill disappears; you may simply be sending it to the sailors, the shipyard or the next crisis. Blumenthal has asked the Navy whether present demand exceeds what the carrier force can sustainably generate, and that deserves a serious answer regardless of which party is asking. Blumenthal
Reuters reported Thursday that the USS George Washington is heading toward the region with the intention of replacing the Lincoln. A U.S. official said that rotation had been planned before the current wave of reporting, so it would be misleading to portray the move as an emergency response to the bad publicity. The important thing is that relief appears to be coming. Reuters
But replacing the ship doesn’t answer what happened aboard it.
Hegseth praised the sailors for what they have endured in “austere conditions” with fewer port calls. I agree with the praise. I’m just having trouble reconciling the acknowledgment that conditions were unusually difficult with the claim that reporting about those conditions was somehow “completely misrepresented.” Reuters
You don’t get to have it both ways. If the sailors endured extraordinary hardship, tell us what made the hardship necessary and what was done to protect them. If the reports are wrong, open the books enough to show us where.
“Misrepresented” is a conclusion.
I’m still waiting for the evidence.
THE RECORD
The deployment: The USS Abraham Lincoln departed San Diego on November 21, 2025, for a deployment expected to last about seven months. It was redirected to the Middle East and remained deployed well past the anticipated May return. No public return date had been announced when the latest reports were published. Military Times
The conditions: Sailors and families reported earlier food rationing, water shortages, laundry problems, mail disruptions, and limited opportunities to get off the ship. Stars and Stripes says several of those logistical problems have improved or largely been resolved. The Navy says clean water, air conditioning and adequate protein options are currently available aboard the carrier. Stars and Stripes
The mental-health reports: Family members and sailors have described suicidal thoughts and incidents in which sailors reportedly attempted or prepared to go overboard. Military Times identified one sailor through his spouse and reported a separate intervention described by another sailor’s wife. The Navy has not released a precise number and says it has not identified an increase in reported suicidal ideation or attempts. Military Times
The relief: Reuters reported that the USS George Washington is heading toward the region to replace the Lincoln. A U.S. official told Reuters the rotation was already planned, so there is no evidence the deployment change was ordered in response to the recent reporting. Whatever the reason, thousands of sailors and their families now appear to have something they have been asking for: a path toward coming home. Reuters
FROM OFF SCRIPT: THE BULLSHIT DETECTOR
NO, TRUMP DOESN’T HAVE THE LOWEST INFLATION OF THE LAST 10 PRESIDENTIAL TERMS
Trump recently touted a chart suggesting his second term has produced the lowest inflation among the last 10 presidential terms. The trick is that his first 18 months were being compared with four full years for previous presidents, as though inflation will conveniently stop occurring for the remaining two and a half years of his term. FactCheck.org found that when the same 18-month period is compared across presidencies, Trump’s current term ranks fourth-highest, not lowest. FactCheck.org
THE DEMOCRATIC AD AGAINST SUSAN COLLINS DOESN’T SURVIVE THE VOTE COUNT
A Democratic outside group in Maine is running an ad claiming Republican Sen. Susan Collins supported Trump’s Medicaid cuts. Collins did vote to move the legislation to the floor for debate, and Democrats are perfectly entitled to criticize that procedural vote. But when the bill itself came up for passage, Collins voted against it and specifically cited its Medicaid provisions as a major reason, which makes saying she supported the bill a pretty creative use of the English language. FactCheck.org
CHILDREN ARE NOT BEING PUMPED FULL OF “VATS” OF VACCINE
During an August 10 event, Trump described children receiving enormous volumes of vaccine and compared the amount to a soda bottle, while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated inflated claims about the number of childhood shots. Typical childhood vaccine doses are around half a milliliter, roughly a tenth of a teaspoon, and FactCheck.org found no evidence that the recommended schedule exposes children to dangerous volumes of vaccine. You can debate vaccine policy without pretending the pediatrician is walking into the room carrying a Big Gulp full of MMR. FactCheck.org
MIKE ROGERS’ 9/11 ATTACK ON ABDUL EL-SAYED ISN’T WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS
Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers claimed Democratic opponent Abdul El-Sayed believes America “deserved 9/11.” The statement actually originated years ago with streamer Hasan Piker, who later backed away from it, while El-Sayed has explicitly said the September 11 attacks were not justified. Criticizing El-Sayed for associating with Piker is politics; putting somebody else’s words in El-Sayed’s mouth is bullshit. FactCheck.org
MORE FROM TOM HICKS MEDIA
Tom’s Number Ones revisits the songs that ruled the charts, the stories behind them, and the old records finding new life through The Afterlife Charts.
Lotus Purrspective lets a tuxedo cat examine human behavior and explain, with increasing concern, what exactly is wrong with us.
Panic Room Sports cuts through the overreaction and checks what actually happened before declaring the season dead.
On Sundays, Off Script goes deeper with Blind Spot, looking at the part of the story everybody else seems to be stepping around.
BUY ME A CUP OF TEA
Off Script doesn’t have a newsroom, a corporate parent or somebody downstairs worrying about whether an advertiser is going to get nervous. It has me, a laptop and an unreasonable willingness to keep following a story after I probably should have gone to bed. If you’d like to help keep that going, you can buy me a cup of tea.
ONE QUESTION BEFORE YOU GO
Hegseth says the reporting about the USS Abraham Lincoln was “completely misrepresented,” but he hasn’t publicly identified what specific reporting he believes was wrong. Do you think that’s enough, or should the Pentagon be required to say exactly which claims it disputes and provide the evidence? I’d like to hear where you land on this one.
#OffScriptWithTomHicks #USNavy #USSAbrahamLincoln #PeteHegseth #Military #MilitaryFamilies #Pentagon #Veterans #IndependentJournalism #TheBullshitDetector
Yep, it is all bullshit. I believe service men and women are not being adequately supported by this regime. And I am not holding my breath for another carrier to take over in those hostile areas. Gaslighting! And how the fuck do we disengage from this "WAR" on Iran? We don't because Iran has been preparing for this EXACT situation to happen for decades. And their patience runs deep. TrumPUS is such a fool and a tool for Israel and Russia to end our democracy. War criminals all!