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President Donald Trump on Friday dismissed concerns from families of service members about the grim conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose deployment had been overextended in the Middle East due to the Iran war.
In interviews with NBC News and other outlets, family members of some of the thousands of people aboard the ship have described a lack of supplies and food and an overall deteriorating mental health situation with multiple sailors having attempted to jump overboard.
Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews, NBC News asked Trump if the deployments have gone on for too long and if he’s worried about troops’ mental health.
“No. No. No — not nearly long enough,” Trump said.
Danielle Rappa, whose son has been deployed on the ship, told NBC News said the situation was like a “scene out of the ‘American Horror Story,’ where … everybody’s dead, but they don’t know it yet.” She said that she had noticed a change in his mood as his deployment dragged on. “Where he had been very positive, he started getting very dark,” she said,
Trump also told reporters Friday that the USS Abraham Lincoln is “moving right now or very shortly” and that “it’s being replaced with another very similar ship.” The USS George Washington is expected to replace the Lincoln in the Middle East, a U.S. official told NBC News.
U.S. military leaders have been privately raising concerns inside the Pentagon and the White House about low morale and widespread fatigue among American service members who’ve been deployed for months to support the war with Iran two U.S. officials told NBC News.
More than 50,000 troops have been deployed to support the U.S. and Israel-led war with Iran.
A typical deployment for a carrier is roughly six to seven months and includes regular stops at ports to refresh and replenish food supplies. Aboard the Lincoln, the circumstances for the 5,000 sailors and Marines have become particularly troubling, according to U.S. officials.
The last port visit was in Guam in December — the vessel has been at sea for 244 consecutive days.
