Editor’s note: This report contains discussion of suicide. Troops, veterans and family members experiencing suicidal thoughts can call the 24-hour Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 and dial 1, text 838255 or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net.
Eight sailors aboard ships from the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group survived suicide attempts during their most recent Middle East deployment, Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said.
Cao revealed the figures in a Tuesday letter to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, in response to the lawmaker’s inquiry into conditions aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier amid mental health concerns.
No sailors have died by suicide on the Lincoln carrier strike group, Cao said.
“Since the beginning of Lincoln’s deployment, there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group — this number includes the Lincoln crew and sailors from the carrier air wing, strike group and destroyer squadron staff, escorting destroyers and all embarked aviation squadrons,” the letter said.
Public concern over deteriorating mental health aboard the ship grew to a crescendo on Aug. 11, when Military Times reported that two sailors attempted to jump overboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Cao confirmed in his letter that a sailor assigned to the air wing went overboard in August but was recovered, treated and medically evacuated off the ship for medical attention.
Another sailor tried to jump overboard in March but was intercepted by his fellow sailors before he could hurt himself, Cao said. That sailor was medically evaluated and flown off the ship for further medical care.
During an August town hall meeting in San Diego, California, military family members expressed grave concerns to defense officials about the mental health of their loved ones aboard the Lincoln. They flagged food shortages, depleting sailor morale and worry over self-harm, as the ship approached nine months without a scheduled port call.
“Based on information available to the command, we have not identified an increase in reported suicidal ideation or suicide attempts aboard the ship,” Navy officials said at the time.
After August reports of sailors attempting to jump overboard, the Trump administration dismissed concerns about the Lincoln’s extended deployment.
President Donald Trump told reporters that the Lincoln’s deployment was “not nearly long enough.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the conditions aboard the ship were “completely misrepresented.”
Sen. Gillibrand took issue with those responses in light of Cao’s letter.
“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 to Military Times.
Cao assured Gillibrand in his letter that the Lincoln had mental health resources for sailors, including five chaplains, one embedded integrated prevention counselor, one psychologist, one clinical social worker, three behavioral health technicians and one expeditionary facility dog.
Only the psychologist and social worker are licensed mental health clinicians.
The ship also had a deployed resiliency counselor, another licensed mental health professional, for part of its deployment, according to a sailor aboard the Lincoln. However, the DRC left six months in for personal reasons.
When the Lincoln finally left the U.S. Central Command theater and arrived in Thailand on Sept. 2 for a port call, the Navy had not replaced that therapist, the sailor said.
The sailor also said that wait times to see a mental health professional for the 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard the Lincoln could last weeks if they weren’t experiencing suicidal ideation.
Navy mental health professionals told Military Times that those wait times were part of a host of issues that proved the current mental health system aboard aircraft carriers does not adequately serve sailors’ mental health needs during extended combat deployments.
Riley Ceder is a Navy reporter at Military Times, where he covers issues directly affecting service members and their families, as well as breaking news.
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