Continuing topic from previous blog-post by me here on my blog
by me, Kerry Burgess, 08/17/2026 2:26 PM
Meanwhile, more than 5,000 US Navy sailors on that ship - and those hundreds on its escorts - have buckled down and do their jobs and will continue doing their jobs.
The mainstream-media news is focused on the types of crybabies like Donald J. Trump and phony-bravado homosexual-eroticism Pete Hegseth.
The Simpsons
"Love, Springfieldian Style"
Franklin D. Roosevelt: To deal with the menace of Bonnie and Clyde, I am recalling all our air defense forces from Pearl Harbor. [the crowd cheers] Somebody please remind me to move them back.
Japanese ambassador: I would be honored to perform that duty.
excerpt
https://debbiedingell.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=7244
United States Congresswoman Debbie Dingell
Washington, D.C. , August 17, 2026
The USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed for over 250 days since departing from San Diego on November 21, 2025. The Lincoln was scheduled for a seven-month deployment in the South China Sea
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/despair-uss-abraham-lincoln-exposes-185016387.html
Yahoo! News
The Advocate
The despair on the USS Abraham Lincoln exposes the deadly fraud of Pete Hegseth’s machismo
John Casey
Mon, August 17, 2026 at 11:50 AM PDT 5 min read
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-sending-fresh-aircraft-carrier-to-middle-east-amid-iran-war-strain-d0d6e98d
The Wall Street Journal
U.S. Sending Fresh Aircraft Carrier to Middle East Amid Iran War Strain
USS George Washington is set to replace USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been deployed for more than 250 days
By Shelby Holliday and Yoko Kubota
Updated Aug. 13, 2026 4:01 pm ET
The U.S. military is preparing to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln with the USS George Washington as part of a scheduled Middle East deployment, U.S. officials said, amid growing concerns over living conditions aboard the Lincoln and the strain on troops during the Iran war.
Several lawmakers say they are concerned about reports of a lack of food and personal supplies aboard the carrier, as well as plumbing backups, as the carrier’s deployment stretches into its ninth month.
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72)
From Wikipedia
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) is the fifth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier in the United States Navy. She [Sic] is the third Navy ship to have been named after the former president Abraham Lincoln. Her home port is NAS North Island, San Diego, California; she is a member of the United States Pacific Fleet. She was administratively responsible to Commander, Naval Air Forces Pacific, and operationally serves as the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 3 and host to Carrier Air Wing Nine.
On 13 August, it was reported that the aircraft carrier USS George Washington had left port the previous week from Da Nang, Vietnam, to replace the Lincoln.
https://news.usni.org/2026/08/13/uss-george-washington-heading-west-lincoln-deployment-nears-9-months
U.S. Naval Institute
USS George Washington Heading West, Lincoln Deployment Nears 9 Months
Caitlyn Burchett
August 13, 2026 12:58 PM
The forward-deployed George Washington Carrier Strike Group was in the Strait of Malacca on Thursday, USNI News has learned.
Flagship USS George Washington (CVN-73), as well as cruiser USS Robert Smalls (CG-62) and destroyer USS Shoup (DDG-86), were in the Strait of Malacca after making a westbound transit through the Singapore Strait, a Navy official confirmed to USNI News. The Japan-based group is conducting their first patrol of 2026, having departed Yokosuka in May.
The George Washington Carrier Strike Group’s transit of the Strait of Malacca comes as the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group’s deployment to continue its extended Middle East.
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and its carrier strike group are in the Arabian Sea, where it has been since January. Abraham Lincoln has been at sea for 241 consecutive days – smashing a record of 206 days at sea set by USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The carrier, which deployed 265 days ago on Nov. 21 from San Diego, has not made a port call since Dec. 11 when it pulled into Guam. By Dec. 15, just four days later, Abraham Lincoln was operating in the Philippine Sea, according to the USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker.
Abraham Lincoln was set to return in May but was extended as the U.S. remains embroiled in conflict with Iran.
From 6/8/1944 ( ) To 6/27/2004 ( as me, Kerry Burgess, the amateur-competitor number 878, I successfully completed the Ironman Coeur d'Alene triathlon ) is 21934 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 11/21/2025 ( ) is 21934 days
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/14/nx-s1-5931183/new-aircraft-carrier-heads-toward-mideast-after-reports-of-issues-on-long-deployed-uss-lincoln
npr
New aircraft carrier heads toward Mideast after reports of issues on long-deployed USS Lincoln
August 14, 20262:31 AM ET
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Pacific-based aircraft carrier USS George Washington has begun heading toward the Middle East as reports have emerged of mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed USS Abraham Lincoln.
The Lincoln originally deployed Nov. 21 from San Diego, and it arrived in the Middle East in January, ahead of the launch of the Iran war on Feb. 28.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-9447-amendment-executive-order-9356-june-24-1943-prescribing-regulations
June 5, 2021 by me, Kerry Burgess
Last night I had one type of recurring dream that happens sometimes
More vivid than usual
I was standing among a group of people
We were waiting for the signal to begin the 2.4 miles course of Ironman triathlon. Presumably in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho,
but that's not clearly established.
I'm ready for it, amazingly, because I certainly am not now, after all those years ago when I last finished successfully that course, on the best day of my life, and that I intended to continue over the following years
In my sleeping dream today, I'm standing there, and I actually feel sort of fatigued. I look at the clock in the distance, is only 6:35 AM, meaning we have to stand there another 25 minutes
Is now 6:56 AM
With a gasp, I realize that I'm still carrying my car keys and wallet, in the pair of athletic-shorts over my athletic-wetsuit
So I take off to leave those in my Jeep Wrangler
Then I'm back. The race has started without me and I'm sitting there
I'm sitting there on the beach in the sand at the swim-start and I'm struggling to get off that pair of shorts over my wetsuit. The material is blocked by the athletic-shoes I'm still wearing
Just before I awake, I'm worried they won't let me start the race now because I'm a few minutes late
How well I remember that day I finished the Ironman CDA triathlon, 06/27/2004
I had numerous races under my belt by that time and I had started long-distance bicycling about 10 years earlier, only participating in organized events after moving to Seattle from South Carolina
That day in 2004, I remember standing there at the finish-line with my shoulders slumped, and such a great sense of accomplishment
2.4 miles swim in cold lake, 112 miles bicycle in moderate heat, which can't train for in Seattle, and then 26.2 miles of running, under 17 hours
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 2/13/1988 ( as me, Kerry Burgess, while enlisted paygrade E-5, designated Fire Controlman Petty Officer Second Class (FC2), with my personal participation and commendation my official enlisted US Navy documents includes: Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal 88Feb13 88Jun03, CF-division, Missile Plot - guided-missiles Fire Control Computers Complex (expert technician for all maintenance operations down to printed-circuit-board component-level repairs, UNIVAC digital-computers Mk152 Terrier System for, primarily, SM2-ER {Extended Range} Standard Missiles ordnance), USS Wainwright CG-28, US Navy, Operation Earnest Will, Middle East Force, including Operation Praying Mantis ) is 8138 days
16276 = 8138 + 8138
From 4/30/1981 ( premiere USA TV series episode "In Search of..."::"The End of the World" ) To 11/21/2025 ( ) is 16276 days
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/despair-uss-abraham-lincoln-exposes-185016387.html
Yahoo! News
The Advocate
The despair on the USS Abraham Lincoln exposes the deadly fraud of Pete Hegseth’s machismo
John Casey
Mon, August 17, 2026 at 11:50 AM PDT 5 min read
When you've survived a suicide attempt, or attempts, as I have, then you know what it feels like for the walls to close in and the dark to feel permanent, and no one hears you or understands you. When hope disappears, and when there seems to be only one solution.
It is indescribable. It is real. And to survive carries a whole new meaning.
That's why when someone like me reads the stories coming out of the USS Abraham Lincoln, it slams you like a violent smack to the face. That's because it's frighteningly personal. And what makes it worse is that so many of these sailors are young, with their whole lives ahead of them, and with small emotional reserves because they have had limited lived experience.
Related: Pete Hegseth wants a testosterone-fueled military. The science doesn't back the macho fantasy
The heavy doom they feel is new, raw, inexplicable. The sense of despair is unfamiliar and overwhelming, and it becomes too much.
The Abraham Lincoln has been deployed since November, floating in the Middle East months past its expected May return, with no announced date for its return home. Sailors and their families say the toll of that open-ended limbo is now measured in suicide attempts.
One sailor tried to go overboard and is now on medical hold, terrified a "burnt out" moment will cost him a 13-year career and end in a dishonorable discharge.
In a separate incident, a watchstander physically pulled a shipmate back from the edge of the flight deck before he went over. A third incident was serious enough that the crew was informed shipwide.
Family members describe loved ones who sound exhausted, "down," and worried every time they manage to get a message home. More than 200 relatives showed up in San Diego last week to confront Navy leadership about it.
Related: Pete Hegseth's taxpayer-funded, high-testosterone locker room military fantasy is bulging with hypocrisy
Navy officials didn't deny any of it in that meeting. A vice admiral told families the service "hears them loud and clear."
But that's not true. I don't believe that line of garbage for a minute. Because the men at the top don't believe them. The phony YMCA "macho-man" and cowardly and contemptuous Donald Trump callously dismissed the crew's hardships, declaring that their nearly nine months at sea were "not nearly long enough."
The equally arrogant, unempathetic, and woefully disconnected Pete Hegseth said that reports of poor conditions and suicide attempts on the carrier were "completely misrepresented" and defended the Pentagon's support of the ship.
I pray to God that the distressed sailors on that ship have not heard what Trump and Hegseth said and how they feel about them. That is the worst message anyone struggling with suicidal thoughts can hear.
Because of Trump and Hegseth's total disregard for the welfare of the sailors, the Navy obviously still won't say how many sailors aboard Lincoln have attempted to go overboard or harmed themselves during this deployment. If they did, Hegseth would surely fire them.
But silence in this instance is lethal, and not in the way the grossly macho Hegseth thinks. In his vision of the military, his obsession is with "lethality," with a "warrior ethos" built on testosterone and physical toughness, height and weight measurements, and with purging what he considers weakness from the ranks.
He has pushed to remove transgender [sic] [ corrected: transvestite ] service members, calling them unfit and destabilizing to good order. Meanwhile, actual destabilization: sailors so worn down by nine months at sea with no end in sight that they're trying to jump off a moving aircraft carrier. It happens on his watch, and that is the very definition of "lethality."
At the root of this is zero strategy in the Middle East and the war with Iran, with equally negligible objectives or an endgame. And if you dare to question Hegseth and ask him to answer for any of that, his hissing response is always that you don't support the troops, followed by a speech about their bravery, courage, and a whole host of blabber. It's repulsive that he tries to hide behind the troops for his mistakes.
Related: Democratic congresswoman calls out Pete Hegseth's 'intense, homoerotic feelings towards men'
And when troops don't have a strategy, objectives, or an endgame, they end up being collateral damage, their needs and health discarded in favor of constant denial.
In this instance, his "lethality" and "warrior ethos" have people drowning, literally and figuratively. The cruelty is startling. My guess is that behind closed doors, Hegseth is calling these troops "woke," "weak," "losers," and vulgar words that have no place in this column. I would bet my last dollar that that is how Hegseth feels about these sailors.
Hegseth has no idea what it's like to feel such despair because the sorry excuse for a man is an empty shell of a person whose only concern is for aesthetics and appearance, and how much somebody can bench press.
Well, I know what that darkness feels like from deep, deep inside. I know how it isolates you, how it convinces you nobody is coming, how exhaustion and hopelessness compound until the unthinkable starts to look like relief. I can feel the weight of heaviness in these sailors, and it makes me unspeakably sad and angry.
But what I cannot imagine is the horror of this extended, indefinite deployment with no communication, no timeline, and no visible concern from those whose first priority is to guard your safety.
The fact that nobody cares, that nobody wants to fix this, that this whole nightmare could have been avoided, is sadistically senseless.
If a sailor dies aboard that ship before it comes home, the responsibility for that death belongs to one man, well, actually two: Hegseth and Trump. They brag about lethality as a stupid talking point, when their talking dismissively to these sailors is the chilling reality of what lethality really is.
And this tragedy has an even more sinister component. If something happens to one of those sailors, even one death, Hegseth and Trump will have blood on their hands. And they won't give a damn about it.
Melodrama
From Wikipedia
A melodrama is a dramatic work in which plot, typically sensationalized for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodrama is "an exaggerated version of drama". Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or extremely sentimental, rather than on action. Characters are often flat and written to fulfill established character archetypes.
Fireman (steam engine)
From Wikipedia
A fireman, stoker or boilerman is a person who tends the fire for the running of a boiler, heating a building, or powering a steam engine. Much of the job is hard physical labor, such as shoveling fuel, typically coal, into the boiler's firebox. On steam locomotives, the title fireman is usually used, while on steamships and stationary steam engines, such as those driving saw mills, the title is usually stoker (although the British Merchant Navy did use fireman). The German word Heizer is equivalent and in Dutch the word stoker is mostly used too. The United States Navy referred to them as watertenders.
Nautical
United States Navy
In the United States Navy, watertender (abbreviated WT) was a petty officer rating which existed from 1884 to 1948.
The watertender and boilermaker ratings were merged into a new "Boilerman" rating in 1948 and continued to 1976 when the rating was changed to "Boiler Technician" and subsequently merged into the "machinist's mate" rating in 1996.
- by me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, posted by me: 3:31 PM Pacific-timezone USA Sunday 08/16/2026
