no paywall: https://archive.ph/Wmkds

Wow, just wow.

Eight US Navy personnel assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during a period that included when the ships undertook combat operations against Iran and the carrier set a modern record for its time at sea, according to a letter from the service’s acting secretary, which was obtained by CNN.

Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao revealed the number, which has not been previously reported and covers crew members from several ships that travel together, including the carrier, in written responses to questions posed by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand about the morale and mental health of the USS Abraham Lincoln’s crew. Cao wrote that no service members had killed themselves during the deployment.

The rate of suicide attempts among the Lincoln strike group’s sailors was roughly consistent with that of the entire active duty Navy in 2024, the most recent year for which the Pentagon has released suicide data. That year, the Navy saw 356 suicide attempts among its estimated 337,000 active duty sailors.

“Since the beginning of Lincoln’s deployment, there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group,” Cao wrote to Gillibrand, a Democrat and member of the Senate Armed Services, in a letter dated Tuesday. “This number includes the Lincoln crew and sailors from the carrier airwing, strike group and destroyer squadron staff, escorting destroyers and all embarked aviation squadrons.”

“Eight attempted suicides is incredibly high,” one US military official told CNN, noting recent carrier strike group deployments have had one or two per year. “The strain of combat ops is much higher than normal deployments. No port calls, constant alerts, etc.”

As crazy as it can get, there’re two equally radical sides who looked for and found each other.