Staff Reports
There are two stories tangled together here: exhausted sailors and worried families aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and a White House order to rip out cutting‑edge launch gear on the new Ford‑class carriers and go back to steam. Both matter. One is about people; the other is about machines — and both will cost Americans, in blood or in dollars.
Long deployment, frayed edges: USS Abraham Lincoln and sailor morale
The Lincoln has been at sea for an unusually long stretch — more than 240 consecutive days and well over 260 days on deployment overall — and families are sounding alarms. They talk about shortages of fresh food, hygiene problems, strained sanitation, and sailors pushed to the breaking point; the Navy confirmed at least one sailor went overboard and was recovered and checked out medically. Congress is demanding briefings and classified updates; that’s not theater, it’s oversight because sailors’ lives and readiness are on the line.
President Trump’s curt reply and the political spin
When reporters asked President Trump about family concerns he shrugged them off, saying the deployment was “not nearly long enough.” The line landed like a cold joke to the families watching their kids on the other end of a radio. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called some media accounts “completely misrepresented,” but words from Washington won’t fix hot-food shortages or a ship’s clogged shower drains — only real logistics and relief schedules will.
White House memo: ditch EMALS and bring back steam — with big consequences
The White House ordered the Pentagon and Navy to produce a plan to remove EMALS and the Ford‑class advanced weapons elevators and revert to steam catapults and hydraulic elevators on upcoming hulls — starting with CVN‑81, the USS Doris Miller. That’s a political statement dressed up as policy: “battle‑tested” systems over newer tech. Shipbuilders and General Atomics warned the swap would add billions, introduce major engineering headaches, and risk delivery schedules because these carriers were designed around EMALS. Translation: taxpayers could pay more, the shipyards will scramble, and the fleet’s timeline for new capability slips.
Readiness, sailors, and a simple question of priorities
EMALS wasn’t picked because someone liked a shiny gadget; it was chosen to reduce manpower needs, launch delicate electronics and future drones more gently, and to modernize carrier operations. Retired Navy Capt. Brent Sadler, now a Heritage Foundation fellow and frequent Fox guest, defended a strong naval posture on air but also made clear this isn’t a trivial retrofit. If we’re serious about a powerful navy that keeps America safe, we need both honest answers about sailors’ conditions and realistic planning on shipbuilding — not sound bites or last‑minute reversals that cost billions and create more risk.
So here’s the hard truth: we can either pay now to fix logistics, relief rotations and ship modernization properly, or we can pay later when programs blow up in cost and the fleet frays under avoidable pressure. Which one will we choose?
