ICYMI: Gallego Continues to Push for Oversight of USS Lincoln Crew Conditions

“We Need to Visit the USS Lincoln to Make Sure Hegseth is Not Lying to Us” WASHINGTON —In case you missed it, yesterday U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) continued to raise the alarm about the dismal reported conditions on the USS Lincoln. During interviews and on social media, he discussed the official oversight visit he is seeking and the military spouse he is in communication with whose husband is on board the carrier. Excerpts from Senator Gallego’s media interviews: CNN State of the Union with Jake Tapper “ These guys [in the Trump Administration] do not care about these men and women. They only want to use them as much as they can and abuse them as much as they can, not really thinking about the best outcome for them. I know it’s hard being in combat zones, but even when I was in some of the hardest days of combat in some of the most dangerous parts of Iraq, I still was able to receive meals and mail and keep morale up. The fact that this administration does not care for these men enough to plan for a proper deployment tells you that they didn’t really care to plan at all for a full war, and don’t care about these men or women.” “Look, it’s not possible that we have so many family members and sailors reaching out to members of Congress and to the media, and that what we’re seeing with pictures, videos, and text messages is an absolute lie. We know for a fact they’ve only done one port call in their whole deployment. This deployment has already gone 270 days longer than they anticipated. So we know they’re lying. ” “Deal with the problem. Fix the problem. That’s what true leadership is, right? When I was in the hardest of situations and my officers saw that we weren’t doing well, they went and fixed the problem—whether that was trying to get us better meals, better communication, or any type of respite. That’s what you do when you’re a good leader. Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump—all they care about really are the big, flashy things. They’re not really being honest with how this war is going, and because they don’t know how the war is going to end, they don’t know how to actually properly deploy these men. That’s why it’s putting us in this situation right now.” NPR Morning Edition “You do have a lot of men and women that are very young. This is a very formative time for 18, 19, 20-year-olds. It’s the first time they’re away from home. I think people have to remember the stress of being on an aircraft carrier. They have long hours, very tight space, tight quarters. You are dealing with very dangerous situations with weapons, as well as the potential of falling overboard. And when you’re adding the stress of, of isolation, of the job, lack of sleep, you’re going to end up having potentially performance problems. So, the fact that the military, especially Pete Hegseth, are just denying this is just ridiculous. We are able to talk to a lot of these sailors. We are able to talk to their spouses, and this is why I think it’s important they allow us, bipartisan members of the House and the Senate, to go and visit these sailors–something that has happened before to make sure that we know that they’re doing well, and that the Secretary of Defense is not lying to us. ” “ The most important thing I want to make sure people understand that this is not a very uncommon request. As a matter of fact, in the middle of the war that I was in in 2005, in some of the hardest combat of the Iraq War, I was visited by two members of Congress in Haditha, Iraq. So senators and members of Congress being able to helicopter in or take a plane into the aircraft carrier is not unheard of. It’s actually quite common. We do it all the time, and we should be allowed to do it now, considering the stress that these 1000s of sailors are potentially under.” “Proper planning makes a big difference. And the fact is they didn’t plan for a long deployment because the president doesn’t understand the nature of this war, how long it’ll take, what is the outcome of this war, how do we get out of this war, and what is the goal of this war. This is the situation that we’re in. They’re yo-yoing back and forth–sailors don’t know exactly how long deployments are–so they’re flying by the seat of their pants instead of properly planning different positions, different resupply routes, and making sure that there is a chain and a train of supply to actually get these men and women what they need. They’re just winging it right now, and that’s not how you win wars. And certainly, that’s not how you take care of the men and women in uniform. ”