Spartan conditions amid long deployment takes toll on USS Lincoln crew — sparking outrage on Capitol Hill

By Jamie McIntyre. Published 2026-08-13T10:55:07Z.

THE LINCOLN PROBLEM: For weeks, conditions on the U.S. aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln — on station in the Iran war zone — were social media fodder, with reports of moldy showers, bad food, and a shortage of personal hygiene supplies. But it was hard to tell if it was just normal griping by sailors who have been stuck at sea for a record 250 days, or if something was seriously awry.

Then came reports that some of the 5,000 crew members were so stressed by the high-intensity operations they engaged in self-harm — and in a very few cases attempted to go overboard, only to be stopped by their shipmates.

Text messages from a crew member to his family, obtained by the website MeidasTouch, paint a picture of deteriorating living conditions as resupply ships are having trouble getting to the carrier in a timely manner. "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 unidentified sailor wrote. "So we haven't had anything fresh but meat cause it's freezed. Sometimes it gets here rotten."