Carrier Lincoln Sails Home After 286 Days

The crew had been instructed not to speak with the news media during the stop, the Times reported. Seven sailors spoke anyway, on condition of anonymity, describing months at sea without the normal liberty-port stops that sapped supplies and morale — rationed meals heavy on carbohydrates, clogged toilets, and multiple suicide attempts. Navy officials have denied an increase in suicide attempts on the Lincoln, the Times reported.

One sailor from Illinois said he stopped counting the days at around 200, despairing that the deployment might never end. A sailor from New York said he had been through a dozen deployments without incident but watched junior sailors break one by one, and said the price of war was one he was willing to bear — but not when a logistics crisis that left the carrier short of supplies seemed preventable.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said reports of difficult conditions aboard the Lincoln were "misrepresented." President Trump said the deployment was "not nearly long enough."

In Pattaya, Mickey Foth, a co-owner of the Tahitian Queen bar and an American military veteran, told the Times: "It's not just the physical stress, it's the emotional toll of such a long deployment. I want to be here, front and center, to say to these men and women, 'Thank you for your service.'"

Pattaya Mayor Poramet Ngampichet said the city was "in the spotlight" and that everyone was determined to make the visit a safe one, according to the Bangkok Post.