The USS Abraham Lincoln is finally coming home after more than 250 days at sea—the longest American naval deployment since the Cold War—while the southern border those sailors could be defending remains wide open.
Five thousand sailors and Marines are heading back to San Diego after nearly nine months supporting the U.S. war against Iran, their deployment extended multiple times while Washington prioritizes foreign entanglements over American security. The USS George Washington arrived in the Arabian Sea Wednesday to relieve the Lincoln, U.S. Central Command confirmed.
The toll on the crew has been steep. Families told NBC News that sailors were rationing food, losing weight, and going months without mail after the carrier was redirected from the South China Sea. One sailor's mother, a former service member herself, said her son told her the ship's commissary was limiting purchases and that hot water was sometimes out for days. "He was just eating what he could eat," she said. The Guardian spoke with the wife of a flight deck sailor who received photos of sparse meals—"a couple of pieces of bacon and three or four chicken wings." Her assessment: "I just don't think they're getting enough calories."
The New York Post reported that supply shortages worsened after Iran blew up a Navy base in Bahrain that had served as a critical supply hub. There were also "man overboard" incidents, including one where a sailor was rescued, according to U.S. officials cited by NBC News. One mother told NBC her son said some sailors had "given up" and stopped reporting for duty.
CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper visited the Lincoln Saturday and acknowledged the crew was "tired," but downplayed the crisis, writing in the Wall Street Journal that the carrier has "among the lowest number of cases related to mental health" of the Navy's 11 active carriers. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called reports about conditions "completely misrepresented." President Trump dismissed the concerns outright, telling reporters the deployment was "not nearly long enough."
The sailor's wife saw it differently: "I just don't really think they're treating them like people. I think they're treating them like a uniform, like a pawn on a chessboard."
The Navy currently has roughly 20 warships in the Middle East—carrier strike groups, destroyers, amphibious ready groups—projecting power and enforcing Trump's blockade on Iran, according to the Post. Meanwhile, cartels operate with impunity across the southern border, fentanyl kills tens of thousands of Americans a year, and crossings continue to strain border communities.
The Lincoln left San Diego on November 21 and was supposed to come home in May. Those 5,000 Americans spent over 250 consecutive days at sea in a war zone instead. The question isn't just whether they were treated with decency—it's why Washington finds it easier to sustain a nine-month deployment halfway around the world than to deploy the military to defend its own border.
