Attempted suicides by eight sailors during deployment in the Persian Gulf have led to some calling for public hearings. In light of that, drill instructors at Naval Station Great Lakes must be wondering about their training methods.
Have recruit division commanders, the petty officers in charge of turning civilians into sailors at Recruit Training Command — the “Quarterdeck of the Navy” — been too tough on “boots” or too lax? The training center cycles some 40,000 sailors to the fleet annually.
Training methods come into play as every enlisted sailor assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike force did their basic stint at the Navy base, transitioning into seamen and women. The carrier group was deployed for a near-record-setting time while on station outside the Strait of Hormuz.
The Abraham Lincoln, a Nimitz-class carrier, had been deployed for more than 260 days by mid-August 2026 and had gone more than 200 days without a port call, according to Reuters. Compare that to the USS Hornet carrier group, which spent 495 days between port calls during World War II as sailors were engaged in sea battles with the Imperial Japanese Navy and were assigned longer sea-going rotations.
Crew from the Hornet saw action at the Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. During the Vietnam War, the aircraft carrier USS Midway spent 332 days at sea between 1972 and 1973.
Besides the eight attempted suicides among 6,000 armada crew members — a percentage of about .0013% — complaints also surfaced of deteriorating ship conditions, continued stress among crew members, lack of mental health support, supply shortages, and crummy chow.
That information led Congressman Brad Schneider, D-Highland Park, along with U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, to call last week for congressional probes into the Navy’s handling of the Abraham Lincoln’s deployment. Schneider is a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs; Gillibrand is a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees.
“As the member of Congress representing Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, where every Navy recruit receives basic training, the health and well-being of our men and women in uniform is one of my highest priorities,” Schneider said in a statement.
“Every American should be outraged by this administration’s failure to equip our service members with the tools and support they need to carry out a successful deployment and the blatant lies about the conditions sailors were experiencing on the USS Abraham Lincoln,” he said.
President Donald Trump and others in his administration had originally pegged beefs from sailors’ families as “fake news.” The president also opined in August that the duration at sea was “not nearly long enough.”
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said in a letter to Gillibrand, who queried administration officials about conditions at sea, that the suicide attempts were across the strike group. Stationed on the Lincoln, he said, were a psychologist, a clinical social worker, a counselor, three behavioral health technicians and a therapy dog.
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In one instance, Cao said a sailor tried to go overboard in March and was stopped by fellow shipmates. “That sailor was also provided immediate medical care and subsequently returned to homeport,” he told her.
The Navy reported 356 suicide attempts across the service in 2024, while there were more than 1,500 attempts among all active-duty personnel that year, according to the latest annual report, The Associated Press reported recently. After accounting for age and sex, military suicide rates have been similar to those of the U.S. population between calendar year 2011 and calendar year 2024.
The number of suicides among all U.S. military personnel totaled 471 during 2024, a drop from 2023 when 531 service members took their own lives, according to the Pentagon. Active-duty suicides across all branches have slowly increased from calendar year 2011 to calendar year 2024, military officials say, with firearms the primary method of death by suicide.
The Department of Defense has taken proactive steps to prevent suicide in the military community, including support services, accessibility of clinical services, and telehealth opportunities. Service members can also self-refer for mental health evaluations.
Regarding the other grievances, grousing has always been part of the military. Leadership, food, mail, and duty assignments usually are chief targets of enlisted personnel.
Despite sailors’ gripes, Navy brass needs to figure out what happened among the crew of the Abraham Lincoln’s task force to have eight sailors consider taking their own lives. The answer to ensure that, in the future, the Navy doesn’t find itself in the suicide spotlight may mean more training at Great Lakes, underscoring mental health during long deployments.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor, and editor. [email protected]. X @sellenews