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As I have mentioned from time to time on this space, when I graduated High School I enlisted in the U.S. Navy, a life that I was not particularly well suited for and that I left, at their request, in early 1982. I make no bones about it, the military life was not for me and there are particulars about my services that made the situation worse, but I harbor no ill will towards anyone that serves, quite the opposite. I had friends that remained in the Navy for many years including one who became a ‘lifer’; someone who served for twenty years and retired. I have deep wells of respect for those that serve and understand, a little, some of the hardships and sacrifices that they endure in service to our nation, which fuels the enragement burning inside me at the reports of the living conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
During my nearly three years in the United States Navy, I was stationed aboard one ship, the USS Belleau Wood, an amphibious assault ship that carried Marines and a Marine airwing for taking beaches in wartime, and aboard the Burning Wood I spent eight months deployed on a cruise of the Western Pacific, so I know something of life at sea in military service.
Over the course of those eight months, we made no less than 9 port calls, 10 if you include Diego Garcia, a tiny atoll in the center of the Indian Ocean with nothing to do but as one classic SF film put it ‘throw rocks at cans, and we gotta bring our own cans.’ The Belleau Wood made some sort of port call pretty much every month of the deployment and those port calls were more than just a chance for the crew to go ashore for liberty and escape the confines of their metal city; they were places to refuel, resupply, reequip, and do vital maintenance that is difficult or impossible to perform while underway. Ships can be resupplied while cruising at sea. Unrep (Underway Replenishment) is a vital element of a ship’s duty while on station and one that was performed under security conditions because the U.S. Navy had mastered techniques that our adversaries had not and we wanted to keep it that way. That said, there are limitations to what and in what quantities of stores that can be delivered to a ship in this manner. Unrep cannot replace a port call, not for any ship.
The USS Lincoln and her battle group were diverted from their usual patrol in November of 2025 and sent to the Gulf in preparation for this administration’s idiotic war. In that time, much of which the crews served under wartime conditions, the ships had precious few port calls. It is quite difficult to keep such a battle group supplied with just the essentials for their operations, much less the ‘niceties’ of life, such as fresh fruit, things for the crew to buy in the ship’s stores, and so during such a prolonged deployment, but such considerations are beyond the concern of this president and his cabinet of yes-men lackeys. Reports from the Lincoln indicated that morale has crashed with possible suicide attempts among the crew. Mind you, we are getting reports principally from the Carrier herself. I have seen nothing from the smaller ships that comprise her escorts, ships with far less ‘generous’ amenities and with far more cramped living conditions. (Not that a Carrier is a hotel. For everyone aboard this is something that will test your endurance and without a clear and understanding of the mission that endurance begins weakened.)
Trump and his SecDef treat these men and women of the military as game pieces on a board moved about to inflate his ego in a vain and futile attempt to fill the deep void at the heart of his soul. The abuse of our troops, ashore and at sea, is a consequence of the voters, who may not have known better, and the spineless cowards in the government who certainly knew better but placed their own status and riches ahead of the nation’s interest and the troops that they so cavalierly abuse.
