About 5,000 American sailors and Marines are aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East. Now, anonymous text messages from sailors suggest that conditions have several of them reaching a breaking point.
The USS Abraham Lincoln departed San Diego on Nov. 21, 2025, bound for the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz.
According to Forbes, the deployment is on track to become the longest at-sea deployment in modern U.S. Navy history. But the extraordinary length of the mission and conditions on board are reportedly beginning to take a serious toll on the crew.
On August 3, one sailor jumped overboard and was in the water for approximately one hour before being pulled out.
USS Abraham Lincoln
His wife spoke to MS NOW, saying: “I think that it was handled very poorly because they didn’t inform me and they didn’t want me to know, and they’re just trying to cover this up.”
According to his wife, the sailor had raised mental health concerns with leadership on board before he went overboard, but they had been ‘brushed off’. In a text message, he wrote: “The boat is finally getting to me.”
Military families and lawmakers have raised concerns about the crew’s mental health as the aircraft carrier approaches nine months at sea.
Annabelle Loma, wife of one of the sailors on board, said her husband had attempted to jump overboard during a town hall in San Diego.
“He’s scared. He thinks he’ll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out his 13-year career is ruined, just like that,” she said.
“This deployment is the worst one”
Text messages shared with journalist Aaron Parnas at MeidasTouch by family members paint a disturbing picture of the conditions on board.
“This deployment is the worst one and I pray no other boat goes through the same,” one sailor wrote to their partner, according to VT.
Another message showed a photo of dry cereal. The sailor said he had not had milk in months, writing: “It takes so long for supplies to arrive, nothing fresh is included.
“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.
“So we haven’t had anything fresh but meat cause it’s freezed. Sometimes it gets here rotten.”
Other messages described toilets that aren’t working, undercooked chicken, mold, a lack of soap and problems with mail delivery.
Another note, shared publicly by Parnas, read: “The Navy does not care,” according to the outlet.
One wife said her husband had sent her a deeply disturbing message telling her that ”he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow”.
Pete Hegseth called it “fake news”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed reports of poor conditions as ”fake news”.
“Listen, we make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment,” the Defense secretary said. “Some deployments are longer than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody. What they do in those high seas and those austere conditions with less port calls, it’s incredible.”
Hegseth said he wants the service members to return home “as soon as everybody else” does.
“My commanders know that, our service secretaries know that, [President Trump] expects that,” he said.
Rep. Mike Levin, however, criticized the administration and argued that service members deserve basic living conditions while serving on an extended deployment.
”These men and women signed up to serve their country. The least their country owes them is hot water, a working toilet and a real meal. Hegseth cannot even manage that, and he has the nerve to look their families in the eye and call them liars,” he said.
Navy officials disputed some of the claims, saying that ”urrent reports from the ship confirm continuous access to clean water, functional AC and healthy meal options,” while pointing out that counselors and chaplains are available to sailors.
The conflicting accounts leave the conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln under scrutiny as the aircraft carrier approaches nine months at sea, with sailors’ families and lawmakers continuing to raise concerns about the toll of the deployment.