US Navy sailors try to throw themselves overboard after 250 days at sea

eembedding-shape about 3 hours ago 14 commentsRead Article on telegraph.co.uk

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Eggpants•about 1 hour ago

I was stationed on the Lincoln during the first gulf war. Most folks have 12 hour shifts, you wake up in a triple stacked “coffin” bunk(I couldn’t roll over without my shoulders hitting the top of the bunk) and wait in line to shower, then wait in line for each meal all while performing your responsibilities. Plus repeated fire drills in full gear because if a fire isn’t put out folks die. I certainly remember losing all the scheduled liberty ports due to the war. It definitely builds up your stress levels over time to breaking point levels. I didn’t see anyone attempting to jump overboard but did see some purposely hurt themselves.

The only port large enough for a carrier (at the time) was/is Dubai but that just makes the ship a sitting duck right now. I can’t imagine going that long without a break.

ndiddy•about 2 hours ago

This is one of the problems with starting a war with the assumption that you’ll achieve an overwhelming victory in a matter of weeks. At this point the only practical options for resupplying the Lincoln are to supply it by sea (involves tying a defenseless ship to the side of it and moving both in a straight line for a few hours) or to move it where the food is and hope it doesn’t impact their blockade plan too badly.

I sometimes see people making fun of the book “The Art of War” because it’s mostly stuff like “you can’t win a war if you aren’t able to feed your troops” that should be obvious to anybody who’s competent. Situations like this show that it’s still useful because sometimes you have leaders that need very simple concepts to be explained to them.

garciasn•about 1 hour ago

They need it but they won’t listen anyway.

tibbydudeza•about 1 hour ago

Like in Vietnam and fragging their commanding officers.

embedding-shape•about 3 hours ago

Also recently: "US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide" - 317 points by rbanffy 5 days ago - 563 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220339

missedthecue•about 2 hours ago

Morale is so bad that people are trying to off themselves and they aren't even being shot at yet. I have low faith in the USN in the event of a Taiwan contingency. And I think the idea that they can force Iran to their knees with a blockade is looking sillier every day. Brutal.

ElProlactin•about 1 hour ago

At this pace, there will be no "Taiwan contingency." At least one that the US is going to get involved with kinetically.

2OEH8eoCRo0•about 2 hours ago

Not to make light of it but deployments are hard!

I think that psychologically not knowing when it will end is extra difficult. When I served in Afghanistan I knew pretty well how long the deployment would be so my expectations were set. If they kept adding extra months I'd imagine you start to feel like Yossarian.

exmadscientist•about 2 hours ago

I haven't served in the military, but I have been onsite in awful places at someone else's schedule and whim.

Getting extended arbitrarily is horrible. The only thing worse is when they let someone else go home early, and force you to stay for no real reason. (Not even drawing straws or similar.) That genuinely broke me. Doing this to people is cruel, full stop.

(Fortunately, for as bad as it was for me, it did at least make it impossible to ignore my mental health, and was the beginning of a long, long road of treatment.)

expedition32•about 2 hours ago

Also people need to reintegrate into normal society. That can be pretty hard if you spent 3 years in a combat zone.

CrzyLngPwd•about 1 hour ago

I've said before, and the downvotes prove it, but...

Damn, fighting for the epstein alliance and the president of peace sounds awful. Still, Trump will soon be able to get the strait of hormuz open like it was before he attacked iran, and he'll be able to get Iran's word they won't make nukes, just like they said they wouldn't before he attacked them...which will be a better victory than spending 20 years to replace the taliban with the taliban I suppose.

Fucking idiots.

mywittyname•28 minutes ago

What makes you think this farce of an operation will be successful in any manner that benefits the USA?

From where I'm sitting, the USA already lost, it's just a matter of how badly bruised they are when they leave the fight. The outcomes so far are:

- Depleted munitions stores, so much so that defense systems have been relocated

- US and ally bases have been successfully attacked. - Tolls have been exercised on tankers going through the straight by Iran.

- Depleted the strategic petroleum reserves of many counties.

- The President had to flee talks due to "credible threats" from Iran. When was the last time a adversarial power was able to hit a sitting president?

- Iraq is discussing allowing pro-Iranian to operate unimpeded within their territory, allowing them to continue to strike Saudi-US assets in the region.

- A "pressure campaign" that isn't working. The USA killing Iranian citizens is just helping the IRGC stay in power.

- An inability to contain the situation has cast doubt on the USA's general military capability.

Maybe the situation sorts itself out. After all, everyone the region is losing out on sweet oil revenues the longer this goes on. So leaders get together, form a "spread the wealth, not the bombs" initiative that allows the USA to exit while saving face, and the oil pie gets sliced up a little differently.

ekjhgkejhgk•33 minutes ago

> Trump will soon be able to get the strait of hormuz open like it was before he attacked iran, and he'll be able to get Iran's word they won't make nukes, just like they said they wouldn't before he attacked them...

Lol beautiful.

cyanydeez•about 3 hours ago

50/50 whether they will get a shipment testosterone shots.

k310•about 2 hours ago

Absolutely disgusting treatment under any circumstances, but even worse on what arguably was/is a mission of "spectacle" to distract from Epstein revelations, and an insanely miscalculated "walk in the park" one-day assault, like Putin tried.

And the two at the top (bottom) of this don't seem to care one iota.

A national disgrace.

floppydive•about 2 hours ago

Sure frame it as bad news. The real story is that Kennedy doesn't have to worry about precious American body fluids being compromised by foreign UHT milk. (I don't think you could have synergy like that before DOGE.)