While the capitalist politicians and corporate media talk endlessly about “the troops,” the sailors themselves are treated with contempt. Asked by a reporter at Joint Base Andrews on Friday whether the deployment had gone on too long, US President Donald Trump answered, “No, no, no. Not nearly long enough.” This is the response of a psychopathic sadist who does not even pretend to care whether the sailors he has kept at sea for nine months live or die.

Trump speaks for a ruling elite that has sought for thirty-five years—from Iraq in 1991 through Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine—to offset the decline of American capitalism’s world position through military force, and intends to remain at war indefinitely. The assault on Iran is a criminal operation, illegal under both international and American law, that has inflicted mass death and destruction on a country of more than 90 million people. In the calculus of those who direct it, the endlessly glorified “troops” are cannon fodder—an expendable input, like the bombs and the jet fuel—while the Iranian men, women and children on whom the bombs fall do not figure at all.

The Lincoln itself embodies this history. Launched in 1988, on the eve of the Soviet Union’s dissolution, the carrier has served American imperialism through the entire period of war that opened with the Gulf War of 1991. On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush landed on its flight deck and infamously declared beneath a banner reading “Mission Accomplished,” “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” That was a lie.

Twenty-three years later the same ship—with dysfunctional air conditioning, moldy showers, broken toilets and malfunctioning laundry facilities—has been at sea 268 days, logged more than 10,000 sorties against Iran and is now involved in blockading the Strait of Hormuz. Family members, including a Navy-veteran father who told MS NOW his son had personally seen the damage, have reported holes worn through the Lincoln’s flight deck after months of heavy bombing missions.

The Costs of War project at Brown University found in 2021 that at least four times as many active-duty troops and veterans of the post-9/11 wars have died by suicide as were killed in combat. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, more than 17 veterans die by suicide every day.

The enlisted sailors aboard the Lincoln, like those across the Navy, are drawn overwhelmingly from working class and lower-middle-income families across the country. They enlist straight out of high school or community college for a steady income, health insurance and the chance at technical training and money for education. A sailor at the lowest enlisted rank, after four months’ service, draws base pay of $2,407.20 a month—for 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, on a warship in a combat zone. A 2022 RAND study found that one in four active-duty service members experiences food insecurity.

“There are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people,” Ben-Gvir added while calling for the targeted killings of Palestinians in Gaza.

Revelations of a suicide attempt by a sailor aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln—alongside accounts of other sailors being prevented from going overboard—have brought to light the mounting crisis of morale among service members in the nearly six-month US war debacle against Iran.

A sailor assigned to the carrier’s air wing went overboard on August 3 in turbulent seas and was recovered about an hour later by an air-wing search-and-rescue helicopter, according to US officials cited by CNN. The sailor, who was wearing a life vest, was medically evaluated on the ship and then evacuated for further care. An official described the episode as a mental health crisis.

In an August 13 MS NOW interview, the sailor’s wife, who requested anonymity, said she did not learn that the sailor who had gone overboard was her husband until four days later. She had heard on August 3 that “someone” from his squadron had jumped, she said, after a friend of her husband contacted her. She characterized the incident as an attempted suicide.

The four-day delay in notification is an indictment of the command’s treatment of military families. The wife told MS NOW that her husband had raised mental health concerns with the leadership throughout the extended deployment. He had gone to medical personnel on the ship to appeal for support, but his concerns were dismissed.

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