Meet Captain Fathom, the dog who deployed with the USS Abraham Lincoln
By Daniel Okafor · Reporting from New York ·
The Navy leadership is wrong. It has mistaken a lack of combat deaths for a successful deployment. By prioritizing missile counts and nautical miles, the Pentagon has ignored the collapse of the sailors who fought the war.
The Navy leadership is wrong. It has mistaken a lack of combat deaths for a successful deployment. By prioritizing missile counts and nautical miles, the Pentagon has ignored the collapse of the sailors who fought the war.
The math of Operation Epic Fury
The USS Abraham Lincoln sailed 93,000 nautical miles during a deployment of 321 days. Business Insider said the ship left San Diego in November and returned in October. The group enforced a maritime blockade.
What did endurance cost?
The ship spent 286 consecutive days at sea without a port call. This is a modern record.
The cost of this endurance appeared in the medical logs. Business Insider said that eight sailors attempted suicide. Multiple sailors attempted to jump overboard.
The physical toll was just as severe. A father named Doug wrote to the Los Angeles Times that his son returned as a "shell of the son who had left." The sailor returned closer to 180 pounds. Doug said his son "resembled a starved prisoner of war."
The human cost extends to the home front. Military Times said that 122 sailors met their children for the first time upon returning. More than 50 babies waited for a parent, NBC 7 San Diego said. Brent Ledbetter, an air traffic control center officer, returned to meet his 10-month-old son, Nathan.
The deck defeats the claim
Commanding Officer Daniel J. Keeler said the deployment was a success. He said everything the crew went through was "in the normal spectrum of what you might expect you see on an aircraft carrier." He pointed to a record of "zero lost aircraft, zero combat damage, zero lives lost."
The facts on the deck defeat this claim. A lack of combat deaths is not a record of health. Suicide attempts are not normal.
The USS Abraham Lincoln shares the same mechanism as the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) deployments to Vietnam: extended combat deployments create a disconnect between official success metrics and the psychological toll on sailors.
The Navy has a long record of fleet exhaustion. The service only fixes these cycles after a crisis. This time would differ only if the Navy admits the current model is broken before the next deployment begins.
Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao said operational decisions to extend deployments are "never made lightly." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth awarded the group the Presidential Unit Citation. These awards recognize the mission, but they do not fix the sailors.
The Navy is now adding quality of life improvements and increasing supplies. These are reactions to a failure. The failure happened because the Navy treated 5,000 sailors as expendable parts of a machine.
The Navy must now face the consequences. Congress will likely subpoena service leadership regarding mental health failures and living conditions during Operation Epic Fury. The service should shorten standard carrier deployment limits below 300 days to address the retention crisis. The military must mandate auxiliary supply ships for Middle East deployments to guarantee fresh food and hot water. Until these changes happen, the Navy is simply waiting for the next crew to break.
Sources
- Business Insider: The staggering numbers are in on the USS Abraham Lincoln's 321-day deployment: 93,000 nautical miles
- Los Angeles Times: Emotion spills over as USS Abraham Lincoln returns home after grueling 321-day deployment
- Military Times: Daddy’s home!: 122 sailors aboard the Abraham Lincoln meet their children for the first time
- NBC 7 San Diego: ‘I just want to hold him': USS Lincoln sailor excited to meet son born during deployment