Eight U.S. Navy personnel assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during its extended deployment, Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in a letter dated September 22. Cao said there were no suicide deaths during the deployment, according to the Associated Press.

The total covers the wider strike group, not only the aircraft carrier. Cao wrote that it includes the Lincoln crew, the carrier air wing, strike-group and destroyer-squadron staffs, escorting destroyers and embarked aviation squadrons. The AP reported that as many as 7,000 personnel deployed with the group.

The Lincoln left San Diego in November 2025 and was redirected to the Middle East in support of operations involving Iran. Its crews spent more than 260 consecutive days at sea before a September port call in Thailand, amid reports of stress, supply shortages and other difficult conditions. In August, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said reports about conditions had been misrepresented.

The September 22 letter itself was not publicly available in the sources reviewed for this report; the figures and quotations above are attributed to news organizations that obtained it. A separate August oversight letter from Sen. Richard Blumenthal documented congressional concern about the deployment’s length, mental-health resources and reported living conditions.