U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain and former combat pilot, publicly welcomed the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln home on Thursday after a record-testing 321-day deployment, thanking the sailors for their sacrifice while accusing the leaders who sent them of brushing aside their concerns. The Arizona Democrat, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, posted the message to X on Oct. 8, 2026, as the aircraft carrier docked in San Diego after months of combat operations in the war with Iran.
His full post, published at 9:22 p.m. on Oct. 8, read:
“Welcome home to the sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln.
After 321 days, you and your families have endured an extraordinarily difficult deployment. Thank you for your service and sacrifice.
Our servicemembers deserve clear missions, and leadership that takes their well-being seriously. Instead, those in charge dismissed their concerns. They deserve better.”
Kelly was responding to video of the carrier’s arrival. The ship entered San Diego Bay with sailors in white summer uniforms manning the rails, and families who had gathered on the pier before dawn erupted in cheers. The Lincoln docked shortly after 3 p.m. Eastern, ending a deployment that began when the ship left San Diego on Nov. 21, 2025.
A Deployment That Outlasted Its Own War Plan
The Lincoln’s roughly 5,000-member crew left port months before the war began. Iran destroyed the Navy’s main Middle Eastern hub in Manama, Bahrain, in response to the U.S.-Israeli launch of the war on Feb. 28. With Iranian ballistic missiles able to threaten every port around the Arabian Peninsula, the Navy shifted its supply hub to Diego Garcia, about 2,200 miles away. Warships in the region began reporting shortages of food, fuel and other goods.
The Lincoln came close to breaking the record for the longest U.S. carrier deployment since the Vietnam War. The USS Gerald R. Ford holds that mark at 327 days. The Ford’s crew, however, was able to visit ports across the Mediterranean and Caribbean before the war started. The Lincoln’s crew spent nearly nine and a half months at sea without a break before pulling into Pattaya, Thailand, on Sept. 2 for five days of rest.
Kelly’s Early Alarm
Kelly’s Thursday post followed weeks of public pressure on the Pentagon. In mid-August, as reports surfaced of food shortages, broken plumbing and sailors trying to go overboard, Kelly wrote on X that the reports of sailors attempting to jump into the sea were “disturbing.” On Aug. 13, he told a national cable audience that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s response troubled him as much as the conditions themselves.
“I got to say, as bad as that and the conditions that these sailors have been put in, what I think is as bad, if not worse, is the Secretary of Defense’s response. Dismissing it like it’s no concern at all,” Kelly said, adding: “I’d like to see from this administration just once, just one time, someone taking some responsibility for something that isn’t going right.”
A Grandmother’s Account and a Demand for an Investigation
Kelly said the concern became personal after he spoke with the grandmother of a sailor aboard the carrier. In an Aug. 17 radio interview, he said she described her grandson, already thin when he joined the Navy, as having lost an estimated 20 to 25 pounds. “He’s struggling,” Kelly said. “It’s depressing, and it’s a very difficult situation.” He called for an investigation and for a bipartisan congressional delegation to visit the ship.
Pressed in a separate interview on those who might dismiss the complaints as sailors simply grumbling, Kelly pointed to his own record: 25 years in the Navy, including 299 landings aboard the USS Midway, two and a half years of qualified sea duty and a deployment that stretched past seven months. He called conditions aboard the Lincoln “out of the ordinary.”
“Without a Strategic Goal, Without a Plan, Without a Timeline”
Kelly also tied the ship’s predicament to the broader conduct of the war. “They got deployed to go to war without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline,” he said. “Now they’re stuck and the administration can’t figure a way out and the consequence of this is just poor mental health and crew members jumping overboard.”
A Letter Signed by Every Armed Services Democrat
On Aug. 17, Kelly’s office announced a formal letter to Hegseth, dated Aug. 15, signed by all Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Democratic leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee and its defense subcommittee. It demanded answers on mental health resources, hygiene and food conditions, good order and discipline, the full extent of the reported man-overboard incident, and support for military families, along with a bipartisan congressional visit to the ship.
The letter said the situation was preventable and likened conditions aboard the Lincoln to those on the Ford during its extended deployment earlier this year. “Our sailors and Marines signed up to serve and to be treated with respect,” the senators wrote. “They did not sign up to be kept at sea indefinitely with no announced return date and, by multiple accounts, without reliable food, hot water, or working plumbing.” They added: “Denial and defensiveness are not acceptable responses.”
The Response From Leadership
The letter responded in part to Hegseth’s description of the situation as “completely misrepresented.” President Donald Trump, asked in August whether he was worried about the crew’s mental health and whether the deployment had gone on too long, answered, “No. No. No.” He added that it had not been “nearly long enough.” In a social media post that month, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao accused reporters of presenting the sailors as “victims.” In September, answering questions from Democratic lawmakers, Cao acknowledged that eight sailors from the Lincoln strike group had tried to take their own lives. One jumped overboard and another tried to do so before shipmates stopped him.
A Citation, a Defense and a Homecoming
The day before the ship’s return, Hegseth flew to the Lincoln and presented the crew with the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest unit-level valor award, citing the carrier’s role in combat operations and the blockade of Iran. He told the crew that “a few folks in the media” had tried to turn the carrier into “a symbol of dysfunction or a symbol of low morale or a symbol of a failed mission,” and said that the reality, as he saw it, was “the exact opposite.”
Capt. Daniel J. Keeler, the Lincoln’s commanding officer, told reporters Thursday that the crew faced early challenges after combat began but that supplies never ran out. “We never missed a mission. I also never missed a meal,” he said, adding that the ship served four meals a day to the entire crew.
Families on the Pier
Families on the pier described a different experience. Victoria Tozzi, whose son serves aboard the ship, called the rationed portions “pathetic.” Lashonda Jones, whose 20-year-old son is a boatswain’s mate, said it was “nerve-racking when he went days and weeks without communication.” Eduardo Morales, 21, was among the first sailors off the ship, greeting his 5-month-old son, whom he was meeting after a birth that took place during the deployment.
Others voiced relief. Jason Tisdale, a retired master chief gunner’s mate, said of his son: “It was tough out there. A tough deployment — very long — but now we’re on the other side of it.”
Kelly’s Record on the Iran War
Kelly’s remarks on the Lincoln sit within a longer record of opposition to the war’s conduct. After the Senate rejected an Iran war powers resolution 47-53 in early March, Kelly said on X that “Trump and Hegseth just dragged our country into a war that Americans didn’t ask for, and Senate Republicans couldn’t even stand up to them on it when given the chance.”
In April, Kelly joined 10 other Senate Democrats in filing a new wave of war powers resolutions meant to force another vote, saying Congress “has the power to stop this chaos and hold this president in check.” In June, the Senate adopted a House-passed Iran war powers resolution by a 50-48 vote, a largely symbolic rebuke that a White House official said had “no significance.”
Why the Lincoln Matters Beyond One Ship
The strain extends well beyond one carrier. The Navy has 11 nuclear-powered carriers. Two, the John C. Stennis and Harry S. Truman, are unavailable because of reactor refueling. The Ford entered a shipyard in July, and the 50-year-old Nimitz is scheduled for decommissioning next year. That leaves only the Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Carl Vinson and the Ronald Reagan as potentially available should the war, now in its eighth month, continue.
What Comes Next
With the Lincoln home, about half the crew will typically take two weeks of leave while the other half works a Monday-to-Friday schedule, then the groups swap. The Armed Services Committee’s questions to Hegseth about mental health care, discipline and family support remain, in Kelly’s words, matters of accountability. His Thursday post made clear he considers the sailors’ return the start of that discussion, not the end of it. Servicemembers struggling with their mental health can reach the Veterans Crisis Line by calling 988 and pressing 1.