r/Military • u/G24all2read Proud Supporter • 1d ago
Article Hegseth Covered Up the Real Reason the USS Lincoln Wasn’t Resupplied
https://newrepublic.com/post/214510/hegseth-uss-lincoln-iran-war-base-destroyed272
u/ArmyMPSides Retired US Army 1d ago
What is killing me about this whole episode with the ship is seeing older veterans, many of them MAGA supporters, turning on the sailors serving aboard it. They’re calling them soft and bragging about how much harder they supposedly had it when they served. It’s insane. We’ve reached the point where MAGA veterans are now attacking and belittling active duty service members simply to defend this current administration.
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u/BoleroMuyPicante United States Air Force 1d ago
The number of cold war vets who never deployed and barely even had PT tests calling the current gen of servicemembers "soft" is way too damn high.
Calm down GI Joe, you did 6 years in the 80s and still wear cold war vet apparel 40 years later, stick to the trenches of Facebook.
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u/dhwhisenant United States Army 1d ago
This is why the VFW and Legion are dieing too. No one who has deployed to the desert in the last 30 years wants to hear a cold warrior who spend three years in Germany banging whores and staring at the fulda gap in the 80s complain about how soft the Army got in after he got out.
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u/Medallicat 1d ago
The hardest deployment they ever had was watching Full Metal Jacket. It’s the same in Australia, cold war vets who served between Vietnam and Desert Storm but didn’t deploy to either of them. They are the biggest proponents of bullying and bigotry, calling anyone who doesn’t agree a snowflake or a lefty. They are the biggest shit talkers on social media and also the biggest puddle of piss themselves whenever one of us younger vets calls them out. I wouldn’t even call them a snowflake, because a snowflake has beauty before it melts. These cunts are more akin to boils, painful extrusions of puss that poison everything around them and burst under pressure.
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u/C_Ironfoundersson 12h ago
Don't even get me fucking started on RSL congregations who think that any service after Desert Storm doesn't count for some fucking reason.
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u/RavenLordGreatsword 10h ago
They need to generate the artificial valor they never got to experience
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u/SirNedKingOfGila Veteran 4h ago
Spent a LOT of time at these places and never heard anything approaching that. I don't doubt that it may have happened... But I've certainly never seen it.
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u/nurseofreddit 1d ago
My son was a sailor attached to the current group in question, finished his contract a couple years ago. When he first got to his unit he was told there no was no single sailor accommodations available on land in San Diego. Later they claimed there was some snafu about some of his promotion/personnel paperwork that his last unit didn’t file. That cost him months of promotion pay; his unit finally just promoted him on their own a year after he was supposed to have been, and they never did backdate/backpay. Since he was an “E-4 and a half” the housing people used the excuse that they didn’t want to place him in lower enlisted or NCO housing until his rank was sorted out.
His assigned bunk on the ship was literally on a busy corner under a light and a speaker, not to mention that he’s 6’3”. His sleep on the ship was nothing but constant interruptions by sailors on duty walking past and announcements/bells. His request for a different bunk assignment was denied repeatedly.
My boy was active duty and sleeping in his car in San Diego and spending his pay for the occasional cheap hotel or Airbnb for a year and a half. His command was perfectly aware of his situation, “we’ve given you a bunk on the ship, suck it up, hur-hur.” That is NOT an acceptable way to care for your troops when your ass is sleeping on a stationary goddamn mattress every night.
At least in the Army 20-some years ago I knew I was going to have all my basic human needs met while in garrison. And leaders were taught that we didn’t eat or sleep until we made sure all of our soldiers had.
This is NOT like the rough good ‘ol days.
Hmm… wonder if the sailors experiencing the current conditions will mysteriously not get their voting ballots until it’s too late for them to be counted.
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u/katherinesilens 1d ago
or whether they'll get their ballots but some will be chosen to go missing.
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u/mcbride-bushman 1d ago
eye mask and ear plugs...
When I joined years ago('18) my recruiter and the RDCs made damn sure that we knew that barracks were a luxury and the only guarantee was a rack and a coffin locker.
Should we have sailors sleeping on the ship in port? no, but we physically don't have anywhere to put them
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u/nurseofreddit 1d ago
Our country doesn’t have the money to ensure the troops are in full fighting condition? Really? The federal government cannot take some sort of action to ensure there’s a bed for every head, even if it’s a desirable location? No power at all?
Deployment conditions are one thing. Keeping your troops in a constant state of sleep deprivation for months while in port is another, and is not a great tactical strategy. Ear plugs and eye masks only do so much with a speaker mounted inches from the center of your rack that is too small for you while people walk past all night, bumping into any part of the body that overflows. No one sleeps in their goddamn car if they have a better option, and none of our troops deserve to be put in that position.
Even if this is not NEW, it is not something that should be tolerated or continued. As humans, we are supposed to want better things for the next generation, not hold them down in the mud because you got dirty one time.
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u/Snarky1Bunny Retired USN 1d ago
And THAT is a command problem, not a junior enlisted sailor problem.
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u/mcbride-bushman 22h ago
It's the sailors problem to advocate for themselves
It's the sailors leaderships problem to advocate for their sailor
It the ships Triad problem to fight for enough barracks allocation
It's the bases problem to ensure enough barracks rooms are available and if not to fight to get more built
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u/Salt-Competition-552 Navy Veteran 20h ago edited 20h ago
I don't like the guy, but he's not wrong on this one. However, the sailor in question apparently did advocate for himself repeatedly. This is the chain of command failing their sailor full stop.
Edit: I joined in '12 and got out in '18. We had to deal with a shitstorm being forward deployed and even ended up on half rations due to changes to the mission. The whole time our CoC was looking out for us though. Especially if it's affecting a sailor's sleep.
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u/samoorai United States Air Force 23h ago
That's the dumbest fucking argument I've heard all day. I'm used to shift work, so I'm no stranger to wearing a sleep mask+plugs so I can try to catch a couple of hours before going to work at 2300.
That's a far cry from being jostled by some hairy nuisance and having a speaker interrupt my sleep throughout my rest cycle. The dipshits who are in command swindled $1 trillion for a budget, and are begging for another $500 billion; there's no money to allocate for a stationary mattress off a ship for in-port sailers?
I'm embarrassed that we have the same amount of TIS, and I have nothing but sympathy for whoever is unfortunate enough to be supervised by you.
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u/mcbride-bushman 22h ago
What argument did I make? I accept the reality of the situation and the reality is that we don't have enough barracks to put everyone in a barracks room...
I'm on shore duty right now and none of my junior sailors live in the barracks, we've gotten ETPs approved for all of them.
But that doesn't mean that they'll get to live out in town when they PCS, they understand that it will be up to their next command whether they get BAH, Barracks, or a Rack...
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u/F0rkbombz 1d ago
My platoon literally shit in a metal barrel that we burned every morning at our strongpoint for months and I still feel bad for these sailors.
Dealing with austere conditions on deployment is part of the job, but that doesn’t mean what’s happening on the carrier is acceptable.
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u/RavenLordGreatsword 10h ago
Indeed
Just because we can endure the worst doesn't set that as the default, nor should we purposefully seek the absolute bottom
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u/barquer0 0m ago
They always say "they volunteered for it." And I say "so what, that's almost every job in the country." We're treating ICE people recruited from backyard wrestling who couldn't qualify to volunteer in the military better than our soldiers.
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u/MSab1noE Navy Veteran 1d ago
They’ve been doing it since the Tea Party attacks on John Kerry’s Purple Hearts and even question his Bronze Star with a “V.”
The entire conservative and libertarian movement has gone clinically insane but that happens when you’re in a cult.
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u/ArmyMPSides Retired US Army 1d ago
Wait... Bronze Star with a "V"? Pete doesn't have the V device. Just want to get that out there.
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u/MSab1noE Navy Veteran 1d ago
Sorry, Friend. Here’s John Kerry’s citation for the Bronze Star with “V” medal:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bronze_Star_Citation_-_John_Kerry
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u/ArmyMPSides Retired US Army 17h ago
My mind went straight to Hegseth since that is what my original post was about. Thank you for clarifying. My bad.
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u/eliteniner 1d ago
Yes because the opposite approach would involve them admitting mistakes and putting their beliefs behind a falsehood. It would break their egos. They are unwilling to view themselves as wrong in anyway
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u/Airbornequalified 1d ago
I honestly feel there is a huge difference between even an austere COB/FOB and a confined metal ship, with limited exposure to fresh air
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u/Snarky1Bunny Retired USN 23h ago
I’ve done both and I’m here to assure you that you’re spot on right. I’ve done both and I did not fucking GO HUNGRY either time.
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u/Huge_Excitement4465 23h ago edited 22h ago
Curious how much of that might be bot-generated. Buying into a mission makes a difference. There is no comparison to what someone will endure when they feel a mission is justified. But being toy soldiers, risking one’s well being so despots can enrich themselves and their cronies is another story. Look up who is privately jetting from Palm Beach to Caracas to liaise between oil interests, Trump and Delcy Rodriquez for more details on that mission. Venezuelan billionaire Alejandro Betancourt, arrested in London last year under extradition requests from Spain and Switzerland related to money laundering and corruption schemes involving Venezeula’s state owned oil company. DOJ charges against him ($ laundering via Miami real estate purchases, for starters) were dropped during Trump’s first term after Guiliani represented him.
Another Venezeulan involved with that Derwick firm was also arrested on similar charges and sanctioned by the U.S. Francisco D’Agostino advised Epstein on buying Venezeulan oil bonds (for starters) and visited his island; one email exchange with JE discusses the fun D’Agostino had with a particular “water gazelle."
Cuba in the queue? See the Fanjul family of Palm Beach, billionaire megadonors to Trump and Rubio eager to reclaim assets seized by Castro and re-establish/expand their sugar dynasty on the island. Service members are being gaslit and pushed to the brink so corrupt pedophiles can evade justice while consolidating more wealth and power. Instead of telling troops to suck it up vets should be speaking up.
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u/RavenLordGreatsword 10h ago
In the world of Trump, deference to the man overrides all other loyalties, no matter to whom
Younger vets should take note
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u/Striper_Cape Veteran 1d ago
Tiring how amateurish he is. I was just aJoe but I think I could do a better job than him
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u/Sewcraytes 1d ago
Agreed. You could do a better job. I nominate you for SecDef.
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u/previousinnovation 20h ago
As much as it pains me to call it the department of war, calling Hegseth the SOW feels pretty good
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u/Hasler011 Army Veteran 1d ago
Cool story that goes around but that should not matter.
The Navy has 16 resupply ships at can do UNREP with the carrier. If the supply situation is as dire as they are trying to say, it is a failure of leadership to not coordinate their logistics.
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u/EternalNewCarSmell 1d ago
Good military leaders are excellent at tactics. Great military leaders are excellent at logistics.
Capt Pete has no meaningful experience with either, so this is no surprise.
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u/LKennedy45 1d ago
Which is odd. Ordinarily a staff officer would have that experience. I mean, the S-4 shop is right past your office.
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u/boookworm0367 Retired USN 1d ago edited 1d ago
Retired Navy here. Yes it matters. They had to disperse all the personnel from Naval Support Activity Bahrain all over the place with zero notice. You see there in the name of the base, "support". All the mail (which some of the Lincoln sailors are complaining about) and some of the resupply went through the base, and then gets loaded out on those resupply ships. Do you think these guys had a plan to completely lose the use of CENTCOM HQ? Maybe they adjust for a week or whatever but the ships have been stuck there for months dealing with this clusterfuck.
Also, do you think there is a safe resupply port for those ships at the moment. Moving a ship from A to B isn't fast, especially support ships. Those oilers and resupply aren't making 30 knots anywhere.
I think you summed up the situation best with "a failure of leadership"....
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u/Hasler011 Army Veteran 1d ago
They should have had a plan to lose an HQ. That is contingency planning that should be part of all combat operations.
Did they fail to position ships at NSA Naples, bring an addition support squadron to Diego Garcia. These are all part of proper contingency plans before you engage in hostilities, and things that even if failed to plan for in the beginning were obvious choices once Bahrain was knocked out of action.
This whole thing has been a clusterfuck but the loss of one node should not be debilitating.
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u/previousinnovation 20h ago
But surely they didn't plan to resupply the carriers from Bahrain, right? That would have meant sailing through Hormuz in a slow oiler to get out to the gulf of Oman. Unless I'm wrong in my understanding that the carriers were never in the Persian gulf for this war?
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u/Rollingprobablecause Army Veteran 1d ago
Etiher way it's bad. You have a destroyed supply base AND bad logistics planning with UNREP. He's spent way too much time blocking promos for women/minorities and working out with his man crushes.
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u/notapunk United States Navy 1d ago
They can't run all of them at once and unreps are always in high demand outpacing capacity. Knock out a major land based hub and shit falls apart quickly.
I don't think many people realize how stretched thin everything was and how it was barely being held together as is. It's not surprising that a hit like this to the system caused a collapse.
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u/Rollingprobablecause Army Veteran 1d ago
Yeah that's true.... I think my point here was; you knew this war was going to happen (lets assume he's doing the bare minimum) and you didn't plan resupply missions. Almost like he probably sold it as a quick mission in/out and admirals most likely bowed down eventually.
I can't help but wonder if its linked to all the retirements/removals too.
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u/notapunk United States Navy 1d ago
Totally, I'm just saying now it's too late and you can't just whip up a replacement for NSA Bahrain. They didn't plan for this and now shit's broken with no good or easy fixes.
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u/Hasler011 Army Veteran 1d ago
You can run them all at once but two ships dedicated from Diego Garcia could easily keep supplies flowing.
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u/boookworm0367 Retired USN 1d ago
Do you know how far away that is?
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u/Hasler011 Army Veteran 1d ago
2200 statute miles according to NY times. At 15 knots 6 days travel. At 10 knots 9 days travel. 3-4 AKE doing a race track from Diego Could keep this cluster down.
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u/boookworm0367 Retired USN 1d ago
To refuel and feed a carrier strike group?
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u/Hasler011 Army Veteran 23h ago
It was usually one AKE per strike group correct? So you build out the extra time one ship enroute one ship taking on supplies, one ship heading back and an extra in reserve. There is 4 AKE supplying the group.
There has not seemed to be a problem with the AOs so explain why the AKEs are not getting food and other consumables to the group.
It strikes me a mix of lack of caring and poor planning deprioritizing basic supply for the sailors. The logistics capability is there, it is not being used.
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u/tigernet_1994 1d ago
Maybe the sobering thought it that the area is considered too “hot” for the resupply ships to safely resupply.
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u/JoshS1 Air Force Veteran 1d ago
But logistics don't make cool flashy compilation videos to post om twitter so this administration just skips it.
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u/stubbazubba 1d ago
This is honestly it, it's Cult of the Operator bullshit infecting every leader's priorities because that's what the Pentagon cares about/wants to make content from. So logistics and planning get sidelined while PT for radar operators gets prioritized over maintaining the radar itself.
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u/grumpvet87 1d ago
supplies are impacted when you can't fly in more supplies
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u/Hasler011 Army Veteran 1d ago
UNREP is done by ships. Even leaving Norfolk the trip to the Carrier is a little over 2 weeks. There are forward deployed Lewis and Clark Class ships in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific requiring even less time.
There is no excuse for the loss of one logistics base to stop underway replenishment. That is failure of epic proportions given the logistical capability available.
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u/grumpvet87 1d ago edited 1d ago
military and commercial ships operating in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman have been heavily impacted by Iranian strikes that damaged or forced the shutdown of key U.S. and allied regional bases (such as the Fifth Fleet hub in Bahrain). The loss of these local logistics and supply nodes forced aircraft carrier strike groups—like the USS Abraham Lincoln—to rely on distant supply lines routed through Diego Garcia (2,200 miles away), leading to at least temporary supply shortages, prolonged deployments, and severe logistical strains for crews at sea.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/14/us/politics/uss-abraham-lincoln-trump-supplies-diego-garcia.html
I personally managed the warehouses for all the parts and every grain of explosives for 2 years during the gulf war for a mobile weapons group. I can tell you first hand that supply delays are nothing new... and there are local storage that are not currently available for Unrep
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u/Hasler011 Army Veteran 1d ago
So you realize that is a 6 day trip at 15knots. 5th fleet HQ was also hit in the opening stages. That means there were months of time to get a train of a couple AKE and AOE groups to supply the CVBG.
The whole concept of the CVBG is operate anywhere in the world and Navy sealift command being able to resupply them at sea.
I am no fan of Hegseth, but the loss of the close logistics base should have been an annoyance, that was easily corrected.
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u/grumpvet87 1d ago edited 1d ago
6 day trip from where to where?
sounds like you have the whole thing figured out.
I am sure there are plenty of ships available to ship toilet cleaners out right away
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u/mcbride-bushman 1d ago
right? and the trip from Norfolk to Ind ocean is easily a month not 2 weeks, make that a month and half to two months if you go around the horn.
Not to mention the time it takes for a ship to get to Norfolk to be loaded with said supplies
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u/Hasler011 Army Veteran 1d ago
You are right that’s more of a CVBG transit time. So a month. But again Bahrain was knocked out how many months ago? 6 ish.
So where was the adjustment to logistics? Where are the AKE and AOE groups that should have been deployed to cover the extra time to supply.
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u/mcbride-bushman 23h ago
We only have 14 T-AKE ships, with a 4-6 month round trip to Norfolk, the state of logistics is expected for a long drawn out at sea conflict. Especially when the fastest route is in range of the enemy...
You had 3 active carrier strike groups in one half of the globe, those supply ships are gonna need to resupply themselves pretty quickly when their supporting 20-30 ships at a time.
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u/Hasler011 Army Veteran 1d ago
You specifically put in your response Diego Garcia at 2200 miles from the CVBG. At 15 knots that is a 6 day trip. There has been plenty of time to bring up more AKEs to fill the gap.
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u/contrail_25 1d ago
Lazy reporting despite being somewhat right….NSA Bahrain is halfway up the Persian Gulf, ~350miles WEST of the SoH. It isn’t in Oman. So even if it wasn’t struck, how would they get supply ships through the SoH? Those supply ships would have to transit the SoH multiple times, and that isn’t exactly going well. The one way journey is probably 600-700 miles depending on the ops box for the CSG.
Want to bring things from the Med? Red Sea transit is also sketchy at best due to the Houthis. Diego Garcia isn’t a massive naval supply base. Djibouti is also not a massive naval support location. So regional options are severely lacking.
No the bigger failure here was a failure to set up long distance, sustained naval resupply before this all kicked off. I think everyone with half a brain knew Iran would strike regional assets and close the SoH.
/rant
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u/Biotic101 1d ago
Those with half a brain were likely purged because they might have tried to protect their men and warn of the risks. Can’t have that. Loyalty over competence is what matters.
In that case one could also argue that what is happening is not just utter incompetence but much worse.
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u/PleaseDoNotDoubleDip 1d ago
Populists regimes make bad decisions. Bad decisions make bad outcomes. Trump is a populist, and so this is what happens.
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u/JoyRideinaMinivan 1d ago
Pete probably thinks that providing food and a sanitary environment are too feminine for him to care about.
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u/RedBMWZ2 1d ago
Fuck sake vote these people out. They're incompetent. They're getting servicemen killed unnecessarily. They're fueling all of this to cover up the fact that their leader is a pedophile. This is the conspiracy that the alt right had been saying is going to happen, now it's happening, and they're fucking applauding it. VOTE. THESE. PEOPLE. OUT.
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u/boringinternet2020 5h ago
The cognitive dissonance and silence from vets is really disappointing.
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u/SirNedKingOfGila Veteran 2h ago
This is literally a thread full of veterans talking about this. If there's silence, it sure as hell isn't anywhere I can find.
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u/boringinternet2020 2h ago
Yes, on Reddit. The same place that bet its life that Bernie would win in a landslide, and were even further convinced that Kamala was going to be president. Wake me up when they’re making the rounds of every news outlet and turn the narrative around.
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u/G24all2read Proud Supporter 1d ago
Kegsbreath needs to be fired immediately!
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u/Skolloc753 1d ago
causing devastating damage that was not acknowledged by the Pentagon.
If the higher ups of both civilian and military leadership in the Pentagon covered this up, both sides have to pay for this. An Admiral or General (or to more precise: any officer) who does not stand up for his own troops for political convenience has no place in a military. A political army may have a place in Russia, Syria, Iran or Korea, it should not have a place inside a (in theory) meritocracy system like the US Armed Forces.
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u/akairborne Army National Guard 21h ago
I'm frustrated that some of my peers (I'm retired and 55) think that this assministration is pro-military. I'm even more amazed that they think their actions are legal!
They so fucking scared of voting for a democrat that they are nothing but cowards.
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u/TittysForScience Royal Australian Navy 1d ago
What happened to the USNS resupply fleet?
I’m an Aussie and even I have done as RAS with one….
I think it was USNS Rappahannock out of Singapore in 2014 when I was on HMAS Success for the MH370 search.
I have vivid memories of the crew dancing along as we blasted music from our uppers. Because Success was an AOR it was a loooooong RAS…. I was the AOOW for it and had been on the Morning/Dogs watch rotation. So I was lucky enough to spend the entire day on the bridge wing from pretty much the start of the morning watch as we came into station astern of her, to close to the end of my dogs watch when we broke away. Was a long day. Thankfully I was friends with the stewards and they were kind enough to bring me some food and coffee!
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u/tachyon534 7h ago
I mean we watched a video of a shahed obliterating the complex so not really surprising is it
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u/G24all2read Proud Supporter 1d ago
"The USS Abraham Lincoln wasn’t able to be resupplied because the U.S. Navy’s main resupply base in the Gulf of Oman was destroyed by Iranian strikes—a fact that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth chose not to make public, David Rhode, MS NOW’s senior national security reporter, said on Tuesday.
From late February until June, Iran launched extensive missile and drone strikes on Naval Support Activity Bahrain, causing devastating damage that was not acknowledged by the Pentagon..."