Sailor fell overboard on the USS Lincoln last month
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Keeping morale high on a ship the size of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier poses challenges that smaller warships may not face, even in combat, according to experienced naval officers.
This week, reports emerged of mental health concerns among the crew of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, as the ship endures more than 200 days without a port call during operations against Iran.
A sailor who fell overboard from the Lincoln earlier this month has been rescued, officials said. One official said the sailor was not injured and the Navy characterized the incident as a mental health issue.
Jennifer Parker, a former Australian naval officer and non-resident researcher at the Lowy Institute, said with more than 5,000 people on board, it was difficult to keep everyone together and focused as one team was difficult on a ship larger than some small towns.
Mr Parker served on an Australian destroyer with a crew of around 200 people, a size that allowed the captain and executive officer to get to know the entire squadron personally.
But top executives can’t have that kind of relationship with 5,000 sailors, she says.
“It’s going to be a much more difficult leadership proposition for an aircraft carrier, let alone an aircraft carrier in wartime,” Parker said.
Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Karl Schuster, who served three times aboard Lincoln’s sister ship, the USS Nimitz, in the late 1970s and 1980s, said life aboard can be lonely, especially for enlisted sailors working deep inside the 100,000-ton aircraft carrier.
“I was an officer, so my job was more mental than physical, and I was out on the bridge wing and on the flight deck multiple times a day,” Schuster told CNN.
“NCOs in the engineering space and combat systems spend the majority of their days doing physically and mentally stressful work without ever seeing the sun. It’s impacting them in a way I’ve never experienced,” he said.
Schuster said mental health is a concern even in non-wartime situations.
He said at least two crew members attempted suicide on three Nimitz missions, including two that were at sea for at least 80 consecutive days.
“We all have a breaking point, but you don’t know until it happens to you or someone else,” Schuster said.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the Navy’s record on supporting sailors.
“We make sure that we provide everything that we can provide at any given time to every ship, every crew member, every captain,” he said.
