The Navy is sending additional mental health personnel to the USS Abraham Lincoln as the aircraft carrier prepares to leave the Middle East after a grueling extended deployment.
Officials announced the move as Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao acknowledged that the service had “treated” mental health cases among the carrier’s crew.
“The Navy is working to send additional resiliency counselors and social workers to augment the already robust mental health resources available to the crew 24/7,” Navy officials said in a Friday statement.
The added personnel will reinforce resources already aboard the massive warship.
Cao confirmed Friday that the Lincoln would soon begin sailing home after nine months deployed, much of that time spent at sea.
His announcement followed several days of concern from military families about difficult living conditions and reports that sailors had attempted to go overboard.
“A small number of mental health cases were treated with no loss of life,” Cao said in a statement posted on X. Roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines are aboard the Lincoln during its combat deployment.
The carrier already has five chaplains, a clinical psychologist, a clinical social worker, three behavioral health technicians and an integrated prevention coordination counselor.
Officials said the ship also has an expeditionary facility dog named Capt. Fathom “to support crew morale and emotional welfare.”
“The Lincoln was extended because the mission demanded it. Deployments are hard. Combat operations make them harder,” Cao wrote. “War is hell and normal routines are disrupted.”
The acknowledgement followed an earlier Navy denial of reports alleging a decline in sailors’ mental health.
Sailors and family members had also raised concerns about drinking water, food availability, communications and the punishing schedule aboard a carrier that has spent months supporting real world combat missions.
Stars and Stripes and Military Times reported cases involving sailors allegedly trying to jump from the carrier. On Thursday, United States Central Command said one sailor “fell overboard” on Aug. 3 and was “quickly and safely recovered.”
In a Wednesday statement, Navy officials said, “based on information available to the command, we have not identified an increase in reported suicidal ideation or suicide attempts aboard the ship.”
That official assessment came as the service faced growing public pressure to explain what was happening aboard the Lincoln.
Cao also addressed complaints about food and communications, saying meals were “adjusted when fresh resupply was unavailable without a single meal being missed.” He said calls between sailors and their families were “limited when the operational threat was too high.”
War Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected some of the more dramatic portrayals of conditions aboard the carrier, saying earlier accounts “completely misrepresented” the situation. He added that the Pentagon works to ensure every vessel and crew receives “everything we can provide them at every single moment.”
“Some deployments are longer than others,” Hegseth said. “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.”
President Donald Trump also responded Friday when questioned about concerns raised by Navy families.
Trump said the Lincoln was being replaced by a “similar ship,” referring to the USS George Washington, and said the deployment was “not nearly long enough” when asked whether it had continued too long.
The Lincoln had originally been expected home in May, but operational demands forced an extension.
The Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 13 that the George Washington, currently operating in the South China Sea, had been ordered to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln.
The carrier departed San Diego in late November 2025 and initially operated in the Pacific before being redirected to the Middle East during an American military buildup.
It later joined the USS Gerald R. Ford and its carrier strike group, with both carriers participating in the opening strikes against Iran.
Since those strikes, the Lincoln has supported combat operations against Iran and the blockade mission in the Strait of Hormuz.
The USS George H.W. Bush joined the carrier force during the spring, while the Ford eventually sailed home after completing its own record length deployment.
The Lincoln reached 207 consecutive days at sea in July, setting a record for the ship.
Since leaving San Diego, its crew has made only one port stop, a two day resupply visit to Guam in mid December.
“There is no question our young men and women have been pushed to their limits, but they have never broken.
They are rightly tired, but have never been out of the fight,” Cao said. “However, it is clear, knowing the whole story, our force and their families are not victims. They are the epitome of American strength and resilience.”
