Text messages shared with MeidasTouch by a family member of a service member currently deployed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln paint a bleak picture of daily life on board, more than eight months into a deployment that was supposed to end in May and instead has no announced return date.
The sailor’s identity is being withheld to protect them from retaliation.
“Why isn’t there milk?!” the family member asked in one exchange. The sailor explained that the ship’s supply runs simply can’t keep perishables fresh long enough to make the trip out to the carrier. “So the supply ship that comes here can’t bring fruits and stuff cause it can’t stay fresh long enough with the time it gets them to get here,” the sailor wrote. “So we haven’t had anything fresh but meat cause it’s freezed. Sometimes it gets here rotten.”
In a separate message, the sailor sent a photo of a plastic container of what looks like cereal, writing: “Hey honey I’m eating cereal rn. Wish there was milk tho. Haven’t had milk in 3 months.”
The sailor also described a deployment that veteran crew members are calling unlike anything they’ve experienced. “This deployment is the worst one and I pray no other boat goes through the same,” the sailor wrote. “Even people that have been deployed a hundred times claim this one to be the worst and believe it can get worse than this. The Navy does not care. The mission will always come first.”
In the same message, the sailor relayed a conversation with another crew member: “I was talking to some random dude at the smoke pit and he was saying it’s an experiment the government is doing to see how far they can push sailors limits of being out to sea with the worst experience.” The sailor was careful to frame this as something someone else said, not a claim the sailor is personally making, adding, “Idk anymore.”
The sailor went on to describe the emotional toll of the extended deployment: “I know my family needs me and the navy is not being fair rn taking me away far longer than expected. Worst part my expectations were already at an all time low. But as per usual, the navy beat those too by going lower than hell. So there’s that.”
These texts add a firsthand voice to reporting from Military Times, Stars and Stripes, and MS NOW over the past week, which detailed multiple attempted overboard incidents on the Lincoln, food and supply shortages, weeks without laundry or hot water, and a ship that has now set a Navy record for continuous days at sea. The Navy has acknowledged the deployment length is “challenging” for the crew but says the carrier “remains fully capable of meeting all mission tasking,” and has not said when the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group will actually relieve the Lincoln.
If you are a service member or family member aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln with information to share, you can reach out to MeidasTouch directly and confidentially.
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