Navy vet angry at dismissive attitude of Trump, Hegseth toward sailors aboard Lincoln

While wars in the Middle East are not the purview of candidates for the Wisconsin State Assembly, Alicia Saunders has some thoughts on the USS Abraham Lincoln controversy.

Saunders, who is running to replace Shae Sortwell as District 2 Representative, is a retired Navy veteran who worked on an aircraft carrier during the Gulf War. 

The deployment of the Lincoln, in response to President Trump’s decision to launch the war in Iran, lasted a record 286 days, including 264 days without a port of call. Leaked texts and e-mails from sailors to family members pointed to a mental health crisis – including attempted suicides – food and supply shortages, sanitation and plumbing issues, among others. More recently, allegations surfaced of a dangerous loss of critical surface traction on the flight deck due to the crew’s inability to perform maintenance. Compromised traction makes an already dangerous job all the riskier for both the deck crew and the pilots landing the jets.

While Saunders was reluctant to speak to the sailors’ complaints, she says she understands why they might be making them.

“It’s a crappy situation,” she says. “Yes, people are going to complain. We complained every day, but we didn’t have social media to rat us out. We just know they hadn’t hit a port in quite a while and that the main areas for resupply (a naval base in Bahrain) were bombed out at the beginning of the war.”

That left Diego Garcia, some 2,200 miles away, to serve as the Lincoln’s resupply depot. Typically, a resupply base is 500 miles or less.

Saunders says aircraft carriers are not built for anyone’s comfort and that’s even before you account for the near-constant danger and stress of the job. She says it was common for the laundry to go down and for there to be mold in the showers, even for jet fuel to slip into shower water.

“So conditions are never ideal,” she says. “I mean, when people tell you it’s ‘military grade,’ you can believe that it is the worst product you will ever see because military grade is the cheapest. It’s literally something made by the lowest bidder. It’s all about budgets.”

What infuriates Saunders, who joined the Navy shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, is what she sees as the dismissive attitudes of President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. When asked recently about the long deployment, Trump’s response was that they hadn’t been deployed “nearly long enough.”

“I really did not appreciate the President and Secretary of (Defense) calling our sailors weak,” she says. “These people are not weak. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I did the job and you cannot be weak to do that job. It is impossible.”

Saunders itemized the dangers aboard an aircraft carrier. They include propellers in constant rotation, jet engines, catapults, arresting wires (thick steel cables whipping in the wind) that harness jets that land, and jets constantly landing and taking off.

“You are working 12 to 14 hours a day,” Saunders says. “That’s not weakness. That’s exhaustion. When you are working the roof (on the flight deck), you are in a high-paced, high-adrenaline, highly dangerous work environment. It’s been called the world’s most dangerous job.

“Anywhere you turn there is potential death. If the hydraulics on a jet blast deflector (a heavy-duty protective shield deployed during takeoff) gives out and somebody’s there, they’re not there anymore. It’s a different kind of danger working on a flight deck.”

In mid-August, the Pentagon announced the USS Lincoln was being relieved and would be heading home. It is currently crossing the Pacific and is expected to dock in San Diego later this month or early October. 

Saunders says both Trump and Hegseth should be thanking the sailors on board for their service to the country, not calling them weak.

“It should be, ‘They’ve been out there a long time, and we appreciate their service and we appreciate them volunteering to do this and we will make sure they get rewarded,’” Saunders suggested. “A good leader does not say, ‘they haven’t been out there long enough.’

"A good leader says, ‘They’ve been out there a long time and we’re working to bring them home.’”

Navy vet outraged at dismissive attitude of Trump, Hegseth toward sailors aboard Lincoln © 2026 by Kelly Fenton is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0