USS Abraham Lincoln’s commanding officer addresses suicide makes an attempt in strike group after document deployment – stay | Trump administration

In a quick information convention on Thursday afternoon, Captain Dan Keeler, the USS Abraham Lincoln’s commanding officer, addressed widespread experiences of psychological well being challenges confronted by his crew throughout their lengthy deployment.

“For most of my sailors, that this was their first time away from house, their first deployment, their first expertise with fight,” Keeler stated. “I perceive the anxiousness that which may have prompted, however I can inform you this: our crew of execs on the ship led each single a kind of sailors by way of that have, and the good majority responded like sailors all the time do – with honor, braveness, and dedication.”

“They are implausible, implausible sailors and marines, and so they’re going to be cared for repeatedly on the subsequent coming few months,” he added. “I deployed with 5 chaplains and a really properly staffed psychological well being crew. We bought our sailors any care they wanted and bought them again within the combat when it was applicable.”

Near the top of the information convention one reporter requested: “Were there some sailors who did attempt to commit suicide or leap overboard?”

“The key quantity that I prefer to deal with is zero; there have been no suicides on board. There had been no misplaced lives on on board,” Keeler replied.

“The suicide try quantity,” he went on. “You know, the secretary of the navy put out a quantity that encompassed the whole lot of the strike group,” Keeler stated, referring to a letter to Congress from performing navy secretary Hung Cao final month by which he wrote that there had been a complete of eight suicide makes an attempt throughout all of the ships within the strike group led by the Lincoln.

“I feel that key level has been misplaced when he, the secretary of the navy, put out the Abraham Lincoln provider strike group, that encompasses a number of thousand extra sailors than what’s on board behind me,” Keeler added.

“We need the suicide try quantity to be zero. Having completed this many, many occasions with the demographics that I’ve on board and the, , the worrying mission that we conduct, that’s unrealistic,” he continued. “That’s why I’m going to sea with a really, very properly staffed psychological well being crew. And once we had acute psychological well being instances, they instantly get seen by that psychological well being crew and evaluated.”