Families of US sailors denounce Trump and Hegseth for ‘dismissing their experiences and calling them liars’

One US sailor’s mother asks: ‘My son signed up to serve his country. But why isn’t his country serving him?’

Naval families with loved ones deployed for months on US warships amid the Iran war have reacted with fury to Donald Trump and the defense secretary Pete Hegseth ’s dismissal of their concerns about the extreme pressures and dire conditions they are enduring.

The Guardian has talked to three naval families who have been following the physical and mental stresses bearing down on their relatives with mounting alarm. The families, with loved ones on board the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Tripoli, all spoke anonymously for fear of retribution against their active duty relatives.

They spoke of insufficient nourishment that has led to close relatives losing 20-30lbs in weight since they were sent to the Middle East five months ago, leaving one sailor “emaciated”, according to his mother. They spoke also of low-quality drinking water and scarce mental health counseling and support despite the intense burden of being at sea for months on end without making land.

The USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier with more than 5,000 sailors and marines onboard, has been at sea for nearly nine months, having begun its deployment in November. There have been reports of multiple suicide attempts including jumping overboard.

When Trump was asked on Friday whether naval families were worried about conditions on board, he replied : “No, they’re not.” He said that the Lincoln’s deployment, now in its ninth month, was “not nearly long enough”.

Earlier, Hegseth also swatted away families’ concerns, saying that the reality onboard the Lincoln had been “completely misrepresented”.

The sister of a Lincoln crew member in his late 30s said that the remarks made her want to grab Trump and Hegseth and shake them. “I grew up in a United States where you have to be very respectful of the military, as they’re making the ultimate sacrifice and protecting their country, and now you have the commander-in-chief and defense secretary dismissing their experiences and calling them liars. I’m really angry,” she said.

She added: “It’s a feeling of betrayal. These are frustrating, false and careless comments, and they are going to have a lot of consequences for my brother.”

The mother of a sailor on board the Lincoln in his early 20s said: “My son signed up to serve his country. But why isn’t his country serving him? They are not feeding him or supplying clean water, and living conditions are horrible. He didn’t sign up for that.”

The sister of the Lincoln crew member shared text messages she has received in recent days from her brother. In one he said that “the water is so bad that they took out the scuttlebutts”, referring to the drinking containers on the carrier.

He also described the mental health services available to struggling sailors that are now stretched thin. “Our deployment resilience counsellor quit months ago.