There is a deeply concerning crisis of resilience in the modern United States Navy. Over the past few weeks, a chorus of hand-wringing lawmakers and sympathetic media outlets have been hyperventilating about the supposedly deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. We are told the crew is suffering from widespread mental health struggles. We are told that a record-breaking, nearly nine-month deployment in support of the Iran war without a single port call is somehow cruel and unusual.
But after speaking with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during his recent swing through Panama, I am forced to ask the question no one else seems willing to ask. Let's be honest: have these sailors considered practicing gratitude?
I have spent time on aircraft carriers. Well, I attended a sunset gala on the flight deck of the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan last spring, which is structurally identical. The point is, I understand the maritime environment. When Secretary Hegseth correctly pointed out that the crew was merely enduring austere conditions with less port calls, I immediately understood what he meant. Austerity is not a punishment; it is a premium lifestyle choice. Every January, I pay a private wellness concierge in Ojai upwards of twelve thousand dollars to confiscate my phone, deprive me of outside contact, and feed me a heavily restricted diet of flavorless gruel. The sailors of the Abraham Lincoln are receiving this exact same mindfulness retreat on the taxpayer’s dime, and yet they have the audacity to complain to Congress about their deteriorating psyche.
It is exhausting. The Pentagon has bent over backward to accommodate this crew. As Hegseth noted in Panama, the Defense Department makes sure every ship, every crew, and every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment. If the definition of everything we can provide them currently excludes shore leave, fresh vegetables, or a basic sense of hope, that is simply a matter of supply chain optimization. You cannot expect a nuclear-powered carrier strike group parked in the Middle East to function like a Royal Caribbean cruise. If these service members wanted to see a port, they should have pursued a career in luxury travel blogging, as my nephew did.
The congressional pressure Hegseth is currently pushing back against is nothing more than cynical political theater. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are grandstanding, acting as if spending three consecutive fiscal quarters trapped in a windowless steel labyrinth launching fighter jets is some sort of hardship. In the corporate sector, we regularly endure grueling, nine-month stretches between bonuses, often with nothing but a brief layover in Davos to break up the monotony. The idea that a sailor cannot push through a few extra seasons at sea without experiencing a total psychological collapse speaks to a broader cultural decay.
We are actually looking into charging the crew a nominal resort fee for the extended high-seas isolation package.
When I pressed a senior aide at the Pentagon about whether the prolonged deployment was breaking the fleet, he laughed and handed me a flute of champagne. He reminded me that the mission in Iran is vital, complex, and requires unbroken continuity. You simply cannot rotate a crew just because they have forgotten what their families look like. Optics matter, and nothing projects American strength quite like a massive vessel manned entirely by thousands of people who are too sleep-deprived to remember their own names.
As I sit in my study overlooking the Potomac, enjoying a rare moment of quiet reflection, I find myself deeply sympathetic to the burden Pete Hegseth is carrying. It cannot be easy to fly to Panama and patiently explain to the press why thousands of trapped, exhausted sailors are actually fine. The next time the crew of the Abraham Lincoln feels the urge to leak reports of their supposedly dire conditions, I strongly suggest they walk up to the flight deck, take a deep breath of the jet exhaust, and realize how lucky they are to be so far away from the distractions of the modern world.