Former Joint Chiefs chair: Truth about issues on USS Abraham Lincoln 'somewhere in the middle'
The Hill · C · trust 51/100
Comments: by Max Rego - 08/16/26 10:55 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Max Rego - 08/16/26 10:55 AM ET Comments: Link copied NOW PLAYING Retired Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday the truth about the reported mental health concerns among service members on board the USS Abraham Lincoln is likely “somewhere in the middle.”
During an interview on ABC’s “This Week, ” Mullen said he had “great concern” about conditions on the ship, which multiple outlets have reported on.
“I know the commanding officer, in particular the commanding officer of the Lincoln, is working these issues hard,” Mullen told host Martha Raddatz, referring to Capt. Daniel Keeler . “And I also believe the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.”
The USS Lincoln, with about 5,000 sailors and Marines on board, has been deployed since Nov. 21 — with the Navy extending the vessel’s deployment in support of the U.S. war with Iran.
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao announced earlier this week the Lincoln “will return home soon” to San Diego as part of a “planned rotation,” with the USS George Washington set to take the former carrier’s place in the U.S. Central Command theater.
Families of service members say multiple sailors have tried to jump overboard during the carrier’s 260-plus-day deployment.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump, though, have denied an increase in suicide attempts on the carrier, with Hegseth saying the media has “completely misrepresented” conditions on the Lincoln.
In his statement announcing the impending return of the Lincoln, Cao acknowledged officials treated a “small” number of mental health cases without a loss of life. The acting Navy secretary added that officers adjusted meal plans “when fresh resupply was unavailable, without a single meal being missed” and limited sailors’ calls home because the “operational threat was too high.”
Mullen, who chaired the Joint Chiefs from October 2007 to September 2011, attributed the lengthy deployment of the Lincoln to the lack of safe bases in the Middle East and the U.S. military having just 11 aircraft carriers.
“Those places where we normally would go for some rest and relaxation ... they weren’t usable,” Mullen said, referencing U.S. bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates that the Iranians have attacked during the war.
“So the planning with respect to that, I think you had to adjust on the fly, and it became very, very difficult to find a place to do that. So, basically, you end up staying at sea,” he noted.
The former Joint Chiefs chairman later told Raddatz he argued in favor of boosting the Pentagon’s supply of aircraft carriers to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the early 2000s.
Rumsfeld, he recalled, decreased the number of carriers from 12 to 11. Mullen, however, said the Navy needs “more” carriers “if we’re going to deploy them like this.”
He added, “So there’s a sacrifice of the future, which we’re eating now as well, particularly with the capability that we’ve got.”
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