As fighter jets launch air strikes on Iran from the San Diego-based USS Abraham Lincoln, now operating in the Middle East, military families are reporting to MS NOW, that the carrier’s\u00a05000 thousand crew members are suffering through\u00a0supply shortages.<\/p>\n
\u201cFood obviously has been scarce,\u201d said Nicole Conrad, whose son is a sailor on the carrier. \u201cHe\u2019s told me there was a time where he was only eating half a cup of rice and two tortillas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Families say their loved ones are also dealing with long periods with no hot water for showering, laundry service that\u2019s down for weeks and standing in line at the ship’s store for more than an hour.\u00a0Only to find there aren’t basic supplies like toothpaste soap and deodorant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know there’s Army guys that are like, look, I slept in a hole that was muddy underneath the tank and I ate MREs. But you didn\u2019t do that for 9 straight months,\u201d said Navy veteran Brett Snow, who\u2019s the father of another sailor on the carrier.<\/p>\n
The shortages are happening as USS Lincoln has set a naval record of the most continuous days at sea. More than 200 and counting, with only two short port calls in the nine-month deployment.<\/p>\n
Carrier flight decks are inherently dangerous, because of fighter jets taking off and landing.<\/p>\n
Combine that with servicemembers reportedly working 12- to 16-hour shifts, sometimes with no days off, and their deployment extended for a second time, even veterans say that\u2019s enough to spark safety concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure, that’s the mission you do the mission,\u201d says Snow. \u201c But I think this is abnormal and I think, you know, carrier deployments are getting longer and if this trend continues, it’s going to impact retention and it’s going to impact operational safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we should be able to resupply,\u201d York said, whose son is also aboard USS Lincoln. \u201c I think we should be able to switch out our troops so that they at least get a break.”<\/p>\n
While parents say their loved ones understand the mission and are committed to completing it, they want to make sure while there\u2019s talk about restoring weapon stockpiles, there\u2019s also talk about stockpiling basic supplies for servicemembers and bringing them home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s our government that’s not helping the morale. I think I think the ship is doing what they can do with what they’re given. But I think our government needs to be doing more for our military, that\u2019s sitting over there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cmdr. Joseph Hontz, the spokesperson for the Navy\u2019s 5th Fleet, acknowledged to Ms Now, \u00a0that the Lincoln\u2019s deck has endured more than 10,000 aircraft sorties over the past eight months, but he said there are no holes in the flight deck and the crew has been able to repair the expected wear and tear when needed.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThough more than 250 days on deployment is challenging for the crew and their equipment, they remain resilient and ready to accomplish any tasking given to them,\u201d Hontz said.\u00a0\u201cThe ship remains fully capable of meeting all mission tasking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As fighter jets launch air strikes on Iran from the San Diego-based USS Abraham Lincoln, now operating in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75,99258],"class_list":["post-429541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-war-with-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}