Your Daily Four Star

Thursday. A sailor really did go overboard from the USS Abraham Lincoln. It was Aug. 3, and he was in the water for close to an hour. His wife wasn’t told for four days. Congress is furious, the Pentagon says it’s all “misrepresented,” and the war that stranded that crew at sea for nine months still has no off-ramp. Day 166 of the “4-week war.” Here’s what you need to know.

Three U.S. officials confirmed to CNN that a sailor actually went overboard from the Lincoln on Aug. 3, was in the water for roughly an hour before an air-wing helicopter pulled them out, and was medically evacuated off the ship; the Navy privately calls it a mental health episode. His wife told MS NOW the Navy didn’t notify her for four days. She found out when one of his shipmates messaged her, and says the command “handled it very poorly… they’re just trying to cover this up.” When families packed a town hall at North Island on Aug. 6 and pressed acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, they were told the sailor was back aboard and “fine,” a response that drew jeers. The ship has now been at sea over 250 days, more than 200 without a port call, a record. This is what an “indefinitely extended” deployment (i.e., Forever War) does to human beings.

Democratic leaders in Congress are not going to let anyone off the hook. Sen. Richard Blumenthal wrote Hegseth and the acting Navy secretary demanding a formal accounting of “shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns” and mail so backed up that care packages have been lost for months. Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Iraq Veteran, is pushing for a bipartisan oversight visit to the carrier, writing: “Unlike Donald Trump, I’ve seen active duty. The way he’s treating our service members as he carries out this illegal war is not just disgusting; it’s dangerous.” Rep. Seth Moulton, also an Iraq Vet, called the reports “horrific” and said his committee will investigate, adding the obvious: a commander in chief who mocks troops for mental-health struggles and a defense secretary “more focused on testosterone tests than actually keeping our troops alive” is how you get here. Hegseth responded to reporters that the situation has been “misrepresented,” apparently meaning by the families of those on the ship.

Mental wounds of war long outlast the wars themselves. As the VA sheds its own mental-health staff (351 psychologists, 717 social workers, and roughly 200 psychiatrist positions cut since January 2025) even as 700,000 more veterans have been rated with service-connected mental-health conditions, it’s leaning ever harder on a private network run largely by UnitedHealth’s Optum. This investigation found Optum bought up 70 behavioral-health companies and partially or completely shut down half of them, steering veterans to telehealth “by default because nothing else is offered.” Worse, the VA made the MISSION Act’s quality training voluntary, so more than 8,000 veterans flagged as active suicide risks were referred to community providers with zero recorded suicide-prevention training. This is a must-read investigation for anyone who cares about the mental health of those who put their lives on the line for us.

There’s still no deal even though we were told one was a day away. Iran flatly rejected Trump’s boast that Washington has “total control” of the Strait of Hormuz, saying the waterway stays closed until the U.S. lifts the blockade, drops sanctions and “changes its behavior.” The June 60-day memorandum that was supposed to keep Hormuz open expires next week with nothing to replace it. Six months into the “four-week war” that was going to obliterate Iran’s capabilities and even result in regime change and a free Iran, and we’re now blowing past deadlines to come to an agreement to open a strait that was open before this all started.

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