Richard Blumenthal has asked Pete Hegseth and Hung Cao to confront reported conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln after nearly nine months at sea, pressing the Pentagon over shortages of basic supplies, contaminated water and worsening mental health among sailors.
The Connecticut Democrat’s letter lands while the aircraft carrier remains deployed near the Persian Gulf with around 5,000 military personnel aboard, far beyond the mission’s planned end in May. Blumenthal said the reports were serious enough that he requested a bipartisan Senate delegation make an overnight visit to the Lincoln.
The Abraham Lincoln was sent to the Middle East in support of United States operations in the war against Iran and arrived there in January after leaving San Diego, California, in November 2025. It has made only two port calls on the deployment, one in Guam in December and one in Oman in July, a stretch that helps explain why complaints about living conditions have sharpened as the mission dragged on to 265 days.
That length of time at sea is now part of the concern. Three U.S. officials told that a sailor went overboard earlier this month and was rescued in less than an hour, unharmed because he was wearing a life jacket. The Navy considered that incident related to mental health, and Stars and Stripes and Navy Times reported accounts of crew members attempting suicide by jumping overboard.
The letter adds another layer to a deployment already under strain: reports of shortages, plumbing problems and water contamination on a carrier carrying thousands of people in prolonged isolation. Rubén Gallego said on Wednesday that he had requested an overnight visit to the Lincoln for a bipartisan Senate delegation, and Mark Kelly said on Thursday that news from the ship about several sailors trying to jump into the sea was troubling.
The unanswered question now is not whether lawmakers are worried. They are. It is how long the Abraham Lincoln will remain deployed, and what the Navy will do before the next reported crisis becomes another rescue or worse.
