The despair on the USS Abraham Lincoln exposes the deadly fraud of Pete Hegseth’s machismo

When you've survived a suicide attempt, or attempts, as I have, then you know what it feels like for the walls to close in and the dark to feel permanent, and no one hears you or understands you. When hope disappears, and when there seems to be only one solution.

It is indescribable. It is real. And to survive carries a whole new meaning.

That’s why when someone like me reads the stories coming out of the USS Abraham Lincoln, it slams you like a violent smack to the face. That’s because it’s frighteningly personal. And what makes it worse is that so many of these sailors are young, with their whole lives ahead of them, and with small emotional reserves because they have had limited lived experience.

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The heavy doom they feel is new, raw, inexplicable. The sense of despair is unfamiliar and overwhelming, and it becomes too much.

The Abraham Lincoln has been deployed since November, floating in the Middle East months past its expected May return, with no announced date for its return home. Sailors and their families say the toll of that open-ended limbo is now measured in suicide attempts.

One sailor tried to go overboard and is now on medical hold, terrified a "burnt out" moment will cost him a 13-year career and end in a dishonorable discharge.

In a separate incident, a watchstander physically pulled a shipmate back from the edge of the flight deck before he went over. A third incident was serious enough that the crew was informed shipwide.

Family members describe loved ones who sound exhausted, "down," and worried every time they manage to get a message home. More than 200 relatives showed up in San Diego last week to confront Navy leadership about it.

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Navy officials didn't deny any of it in that meeting. A vice admiral told families the service "hears them loud and clear."

But that’s not true. I don’t believe that line of garbage for a minute. Because the men at the top don’t believe them. The phony YMCA “macho-man” and cowardly and contemptuous Donald Trump callously dismissed the crew's hardships, declaring that their nearly nine months at sea were “not nearly long enough.”

The equally arrogant, unempathetic, and woefully disconnected Pete Hegseth said that reports of poor conditions and suicide attempts on the carrier were "completely misrepresented" and defended the Pentagon's support of the ship.

I pray to God that the distressed sailors on that ship have not heard what Trump and Hegseth said and how they feel about them. That is the worst message anyone struggling with suicidal thoughts can hear.

Because of Trump and Hegseth’s total disregard for the welfare of the sailors, the Navy obviously still won't say how many sailors aboard Lincoln have attempted to go overboard or harmed themselves during this deployment. If they did, Hegseth would surely fire them.

But silence in this instance is lethal, and not in the way the grossly macho Hegseth thinks. In his vision of the military, his obsession is with "lethality," with a “warrior ethos” built on testosterone and physical toughness, height and weight measurements, and with purging what he considers weakness from the ranks.

He has pushed to remove transgender service members, calling them unfit and destabilizing to good order. Meanwhile, actual destabilization: sailors so worn down by nine months at sea with no end in sight that they're trying to jump off a moving aircraft carrier. It happens on his watch, and that is the very definition of “lethality.”

At the root of this is zero strategy in the Middle East and the war with Iran, with equally negligible objectives or an endgame. And if you dare to question Hegseth and ask him to answer for any of that, his hissing response is always that you don't support the troops, followed by a speech about their bravery, courage, and a whole host of blabber. It’s repulsive that he tries to hide behind the troops for his mistakes.

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And when troops don’t have a strategy, objectives, or an endgame, they end up being collateral damage, their needs and health discarded in favor of constant denial.

In this instance, his "lethality" and “warrior ethos” have people drowning, literally and figuratively. The cruelty is startling. My guess is that behind closed doors, Hegseth is calling these troops “woke,” “weak,” “losers,” and vulgar words that have no place in this column. I would bet my last dollar that that is how Hegseth feels about these sailors.

Hegseth has no idea what it’s like to feel such despair because the sorry excuse for a man is an empty shell of a person whose only concern is for aesthetics and appearance, and how much somebody can bench press.

Well, I know what that darkness feels like from deep, deep inside. I know how it isolates you, how it convinces you nobody is coming, how exhaustion and hopelessness compound until the unthinkable starts to look like relief. I can feel the weight of heaviness in these sailors, and it makes me unspeakably sad and angry.

But what I cannot imagine is the horror of this extended, indefinite deployment with no communication, no timeline, and no visible concern from those whose first priority is to guard your safety.

The fact that nobody cares, that nobody wants to fix this, that this whole nightmare could have been avoided, is sadistically senseless.

If a sailor dies aboard that ship before it comes home, the responsibility for that death belongs to one man, well, actually two: Hegseth and Trump. They brag about lethality as a stupid talking point, when their talking dismissively to these sailors is the chilling reality of what lethality really is.

And this tragedy has an even more sinister component. If something happens to one of those sailors, even one death, Hegseth and Trump will have blood on their hands. And they won’t give a damn about it.

If you or someone you know needs mental health resources and support, please call, text, or chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or visit 988lifeline.org for 24/7 access to free and confidential services. Trans Lifeline, designed for transgender or gender-nonconforming people, can be reached at (877) 565-8860. The lifeline also provides resources to help with other crises, such as domestic violence situations. The Trevor Project Lifeline, for LGBTQ+ youth (ages 24 and younger), can be reached at (866) 488-7386. Users can also access chat services at TheTrevorProject.org/Help or text START to 678678.

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