Carrier deployment

Extended carrier deployment bad for the Navy, Ruben Gallego says

The Arizona senator said it will make it harder to retain its sailors.

By David Cohen

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said Sunday that the record-setting deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln could create problems for the Navy down the road.

Speaking Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Gallego said the issues surrounding the carrier’s extended deployment could, among other things, make it difficult to persuade people to remain in the Navy.

“When they get back to home, when they start having that conversation with their wife or with their husband — is it worth rejoining?” Gallego said. “They’re going to have think twice because look at how this leadership is treating them.”

Reports surfaced in recent days of poor conditions, limited supplies, and awful morale on the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea, with the Military Times reporting that “multiple” sailors had tried to go overboard. Concerns had been raised by family members in touch with those on the carrier.

When asked Friday about the Lincoln, Trump said families were not actually concerned and said that the Lincoln’s deployment had actually gone on “not nearly long enough.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said the situation was being “completely misrepresented,” told reporters Thursday: “We make sure every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment.”

But Gallego said the seeming indifference of Trump toward those forced to remain on their ship for more than 240 days reflects the administration’s attitude toward its fighting men and women. He said they look upon these people as “being expendable.”

“There’s a deep, deep, deep mistrust of this leadership,” Gallego said.

Adm. Brad Cooper, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, visited the Lincoln on Saturday and informed those on board that relief is on the way with the pending arrival of the USS George Washington. “History will record this deployment as one of the most operationally intense and consequential of the modern era,” Cooper said in a statement released Saturday.

But Gallego told host Martha Raddatz the issues surrounding the aircraft carrier are proof of larger issues surrounding the Iran war.

“It really goes to the deep, deep, deep problem here is that this administration did not plan for this war, did not plan how to get out of this war, did not really understand how this war was going to escalate,” Gallego said.

Gallego served in the Marines; he was deployed to Iraq during the second Gulf War. Another veteran, Gov. Wes Moore, also was critical Sunday of the administration’s treatment of the Lincoln.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” the Maryland Democrat said: “I mean not only are these conditions and the reports of the conditions heartbreaking, the response of the president of the United States pisses me off and it should piss all of us off.”

Moore, who served in Afghanistan, also said of Trump: “Instead of saying, ‘I’m going to look into this, and I’m going to get to the root of this, and I’m going to figure out what’s going on, and we are going to make sure we’re protecting those who are willing to protect us,’ his response is, their deployments haven’t lasted long enough.”

Retired Adm. Michael Mullen, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on ABC that the issue has been that the Iranians have targeted the ports the U.S. would typically utilize, even Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

“Those places where we normally would go for some rest and relaxation, they just, they weren’t usable,” he told Raddatz. “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.”

But Mullen said he expected morale would now improve.

“One of the positives of Cooper’s visit yesterday,” Mullen said, “is he announced to the crew that they’re going home. And I can tell you the uplift in morale when you have that, even if they don’t have an exact date, you know you’ve got a relief that George Washington is coming from the Pacific.”