As USS Lincoln Nears Return to America’s Shores, Gallego Calls for Review, Oversight of the Ship’s Record-Breaking Deployment

WASHINGTON — Today, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) , a Marine Corps combat veteran who served in Iraq, wrote to the Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General (IG) Platte B. Moring and Acting Comptroller General of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Orice W. Brown requesting reviews of the USS Abraham Lincoln’s deployment. The more than 300-day deployment, among the longest for a U.S. aircraft carrier since the Vietnam War, initially focused on the Indo-Pacific but was later extended to support President Trump’s war in Iran. It drew condemnation from officials and servicemembers’ families amid reports of mental health concerns and deteriorating conditions on board. The letter comes as the USS Lincoln returned to U.S. soil for the first time in nine months, when the carrier stopped at Naval Base Guam last month. Senator Gallego, in his letter to the DoD IG, wrote to urge an “independent investigation” of the “decisions and systems behind the reported shortages of food and basic supplies, sustained crew fatigue, and limited access to mental-health resources aboard the ship.” Reports from the deployment also described water contamination, plumbing failures, and sailors threatening to jump overboard, among other problems. Specifically, the senator requests the DoD IG “provide written findings, including any determination of policy noncompliance, systemic deficiency, or recommended accountability measures.” In his letter to the GAO, Senator Gallego wrote to request a report on “the Department of the Navy’s ability to safely and effectively sustain extended ship deployments, and the effect of increasingly prolonged deployments on logistics, maintenance, sailor welfare, readiness, and retention.” Specifically, the senator requests that the GAO “recommend measurable standards or benchmarks that Congress and Navy leadership can use to determine when an extended deployment has exceeded sustainable limits.” “The Lincoln’s crew met extraordinary operational demands and performed a critical mission. That makes it all the more important to determine whether the Navy’s systems were adequate to sustain sailors and maintain readiness under these conditions,” concluded Senator Gallego. In August, Senator Gallego reacted to reports of poor conditions aboard the USS Lincoln on an ABC News appearance , saying, “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.” That same month, Senator Gallego called for an official congressional oversight visit to the USS Lincoln to investigate reported conditions and joined. The full letter to DoD IG Moring can be found HERE . The full letter to GAO Acting Comptroller General Brown can be found HERE .