As the USS Abraham Lincoln pulls into its homeport of San Diego on Thursday after a record-breaking deployment to the Iran war, Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., is calling for investigations of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon and the supply failures and mental health challenges that plagued the aircraft carrier.

Citing MS NOW’s reporting, Gallego requested the Department of Defense’s inspector general conduct an independent review of the “reported shortages of food and basic supplies, sustained crew fatigue, and limited access to mental-health resources aboard the ship,” according to a letter dated Oct. 7 and reviewed by MS NOW.

Those shortages subsequently exposed the extent to which the Navy’s supply chain was disrupted by Iran’s bombing of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet logistical hub in Bahrain in March.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle told sailors in a town hall meeting on Aug. 31 that the Navy isn’t going back to Naval Support Activity Bahrain “anytime soon.” Last month, he said in a video that the Navy learned from the Lincoln’s supply challenges and is “putting those lessons into action” for future carrier deployments.

Gallego, a member of the Senate Veterans’s Affairs Committee, also asked DOD Inspector General Platte B. Moring III to examine how leadership responded to “worsening mental-health conditions or self-harm risk, including any instances in which a sailor sought care and did not receive it.”

“The Lincoln’s crew met extraordinary operational demands and performed a critical mission. That makes it all the more important to determine whether the Navy’s systems were adequate to sustain sailors and maintain readiness under those conditions,” Gallego wrote to the inspector general.

In a separate letter dated Oct. 7 to the head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, acting Comptroller Gen. Orice W. Brown, Gallego requested a review of the Navy’s ability to “safely and effectively sustain extended ship deployments” like the Lincoln’s.

Gallego asked the GAO to review how extended deployments have an impact on the ship’s maintenance, equipment condition, and crew fatigue and retention and whether the Navy can uphold reasonable standards when it comes to food, communication and sanitation.

The Lincoln broke the modern day record in the Navy for most continuous days at sea without a port call. For seven straight months, the crew did not set foot on dry land, which prompted family members to confront Navy leaders about their loved ones’ potential for physical exhaustion and mental health crises.

“The Lincoln’s deployment raises a question that extends well beyond a single ship: whether those conditions were an isolated failure or an early indication of what the Navy’s current operational tempo will routinely demand, and whether the force is built to absorb it,” Gallego wrote.

Typically aircraft carriers deploy for six to seven months and stop every 30 to 45 days to resupply, address larger maintenance issues that cannot be adequately managed at sea, and to give the crew an opportunity for rest.

The Lincoln’s deployment, however, was 10 1/2 months in total, and seven of those months were spent continuously at sea with no opportunity for a port call because Navy leaders said there was nowhere safe for the ship to stop.

A combat Marines Corps veteran of the Iraq War, Gallego said he knows what “forever wars” look like.

“Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth have dragged our country into yet another one with no clear objective or exit strategy. And, unfortunately, that decision has had grave consequences,” Gallego said. “Our servicemembers and their loved ones deserve answers. I intend to get them.”

Lawmakers, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal D-Conn., have been demanding answers about the conditions on the Lincoln and the state of the Navy as a whole from the Pentagon since early August.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., on the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, and Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, called for congressional hearings after the Navy disclosed last month there had been eight suicide attempts in the Lincoln’s carrier strike group.

On Sept. 27, a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House Armed Services Committee visited the Lincoln for an oversight visit along with acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao.

After visiting the Lincoln, Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., said she spoke with sailors and Marines who described challenges washing clothes, getting medicine and enough food to eat during their long deployment.

“I’m relieved that the USS Abraham Lincoln will soon be back in San Diego, and I’m looking forward to welcoming them home,” Jacobs said. “But our demand for accountability won’t end when they make port.”

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