8 Sailors In Lincoln Strike Group Attempted Suicide During Lengthy Deployment: Acting Navy Secretary

Eight sailors in the USS Abraham Lincoln’s carrier strike group attempted suicide during a deployment that ran 286 days at sea, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao has told Congress, weeks after the administration waved off reports of deteriorating conditions aboard the carrier.

In a Sept. 22 letter to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Cao said the attempts occurred across the strike group since the Lincoln deployed in November 2025, including the carrier’s crew, its air wing, the escorting destroyers and embarked squadrons. None of the attempts was fatal. The Lincoln operated in the Middle East from January, supported U.S. forces through the war with Iran, and was relieved last month by the USS George Washington.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in August that conditions aboard had been “completely misrepresented.” That came after reports of rising suicide risk, food rationing, and broken laundry and toilet facilities. U.S. Central Command also called reports of a spike in suicidal thoughts false, along with a report that seven sailors had died in a fight aboard the carrier.

As The Epoch Times notes further, Gillibrand accused the Trump administration of failing to take care of service members.

“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 Sept. 24.

“Our troops and their families make immense sacrifices every single day, yet the president dismissed them with open disrespect.”

Cao’s letter to Gillibrand came in response to a letter that Gillibrand and a group of 14 other lawmakers sent to Hegseth last month demanding answers on the conditions of the Lincoln.

The sailors assigned to the Lincoln strike group “demonstrated exceptional resolve under demanding conditions,” Cao said.

“Operational decisions to extend deployments are never made lightly; they are driven by dynamic global security environments and absolute necessity of protecting U.S. national security interests and our personnel and our allies abroad,” he wrote.

Cao told Gillibrand that the Lincoln was deployed with five chaplains, three behavioral health technicians, one clinical social worker, one psychologist, one embedded integrated prevention counselor, and one expeditionary facility dog.

The acting Navy secretary also noted that a sailor assigned to the air wing went overboard in early August but was quickly recovered, received medical treatment, and was transferred off ship for additional care. In addition, another sailor had previously attempted to go overboard in March but was stopped by other sailors, Cao said.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized the Trump administration for not reporting the number of suicide attempts sooner.

“There has been no administration that is less transparent,” he told reporters on Sept. 24.

Warner said that while U.S. sailors will “do their job,” they typically expect a six-month deployment.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Pentagon and the Navy for comment and did not receive a response before publication time.

Nathan Worcester contributed to this report.