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Eight US Navy personnel serving aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during the group’s deployment involving combat operations against Iran, according to a letter obtained by CNN.
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao disclosed the figure in written responses to questions from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand about the morale and mental health of personnel assigned to the group. Cao said that no service members had died by suicide during the deployment.
“Since the beginning of Lincoln’s deployment, there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group,” Cao wrote in the letter, dated Tuesday.
Attempts involved personnel from several ships
The figure includes the crew of the carrier, sailors from its carrier air wing, staff from the strike group and destroyer squadron, personnel on escorting destroyers, and members of embarked aviation squadrons.
Between 6,000 and 7,000 Navy sailors were deployed with the strike group, which included approximately six ships. The carrier remained at sea for more than six months while conducting a high tempo of combat operations against Iran.
“Eight attempted suicides is incredibly high,” an unnamed US military official told CNN, adding that recent carrier strike group deployments had typically recorded one or two such incidents per year.
Carrier spent 286 days at sea
“The strain of combat operations is much higher than normal deployments. No port calls, constant alerts, and so on,” the official said.
After spending 286 days at sea, the USS Abraham Lincoln docked at Thailand’s Laem Chabang Port on September 2.
