Suicide attempts in the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group climbed to eight during its combat deployment, far above what carriers usually see, an official said.
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao disclosed the figure in a letter dated Tuesday to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), according to CNN, which obtained the letter.
The outlet said the number had not been previously reported. No sailor died by suicide during the deployment, Cao insisted.
“Since the beginning of Lincoln’s deployment, there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group,” Cao wrote to Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “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.”
“Eight attempted suicides is incredibly high,” a U.S. military official told CNN. “The strain of combat ops is much higher than normal deployments. No port calls, constant alerts, etc.”
The official said recent carrier strike group deployments have seen one or two attempts a year.
CNN reported that between 6,000 and 7,000 sailors served in the strike group across about a half dozen ships. The carrier stayed out of port for more than six months while carrying out combat operations against Iran.
The strike group’s rate of attempts was roughly in line with the rate for the entire active-duty Navy in 2024, when the service recorded 356 attempts among about 337,000 sailors, according to CNN. The official was comparing the Lincoln with other carrier deployments, not the Navy as a whole.
“We have not observed an increase in suicidal ideations or attempts aboard the ship,” the Navy said in an earlier statement to CNN.
“A small number of mental health cases were treated with no loss of life,” Cao said in an August statement, according to the Washington Examiner.
CNN had previously reported that two sailors from the strike group jumped overboard in recent months. Both were rescued, U.S. officials said. Cao’s count of eight is higher than the two incidents reported earlier in the summer.
Cao confirmed in the letter that an air wing sailor went overboard in early August. The CNN report said that the sailor was recovered and treated aboard the carrier.
“Additionally, one sailor attempted to go overboard in March and was stopped by his shipmates,” Cao wrote.
At Joint Base Andrews on Aug. 14, a reporter told President Donald Trump that families of Lincoln sailors were concerned about conditions aboard the ship.
“No, they’re not,” Trump said. Asked whether the deployment had gone on too long, he answered, “No, no, not nearly long enough.”
“The Fake News media should STOP exploiting military families!” Pentagon deputy press secretary Jacob Bliss wrote on X that day.
“It was fake news reporting from CNN,” Trump later said of the reports of distress by the families.
Gillibrand responded to Cao’s letter in a statement to Newsweek.
“What Trump and Secretary [of Defense Pete] Hegseth dismissed as ‘fake news’ turned out to be serious and deteriorating conditions for our service members,” Gillibrand said.
The Lincoln left the Middle East in August and is expected back in San Diego in the coming weeks.
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