The outrage machine is at it again, this time turning its bleeding-heart focus to the high seas. A sailor on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, reportedly suffering from the trendy modern affliction known as "burnout," threw himself off the flight deck into the ocean during an extended deployment. He survived, was fished out of the water, and the Navy, acting with commendable administrative clarity, punished him for it. Naturally, the press corps is treating this as a scandal of historic proportions.
Let's be honest: the sheer entitlement of the modern enlisted man is staggering. When you sign a contract with the United States government, you are agreeing to stay on the boat until the boat docks. You do not get to unilaterally decide your deployment is over just because you are experiencing a personal crisis.
I was discussing this very issue over a rather bruising dry martini at the Hay-Adams recently with a senior Pentagon official—a man who has overseen more extended naval deployments from his office in Arlington than anyone else in the building. He looked absolutely exhausted by the media coverage. He asked me if the public had any idea how much paperwork a man-overboard drill generates, and frankly, I had to admit they do not.
Consider the sheer logistical arrogance of the jump. A Nimitz-class carrier is powered by two nuclear reactors and displaces roughly a hundred thousand tons of water. It is not a jet ski. When a sailor decides to take an unauthorized plunge, the entire strike group has to alter its heading to facilitate a rescue. That is millions of taxpayer dollars vaporized, not to mention the disruption to our geopolitical deterrence posture in the Middle East, all because one E-3 couldn't handle a few extra months at sea.
We all have tough days at the office. Last winter, I was trapped at the Davos summit during a severe blizzard. The catering was delayed, the Wi-Fi in the VIP chalet was spotty, and I was forced to sit through a three-hour panel on blockchain synergies while nursing a mild sinus infection. Did I hurl myself off the Swiss Alps into a snowbank? No. I took a deep breath, remembered my obligations to my publisher, and stayed in my seat. That is what professionals do.
Critics are calling the Navy's decision to dock the sailor's pay and reduce his rank a draconian response to a mental health emergency. I call it a standard human resources procedure for an unexcused absence. If an analyst at Goldman Sachs walked out of a pitch meeting and threw himself into the Hudson River, he would not be promoted. He would be written up for abandoning his post. Why should the world's most lethal maritime fighting force be held to a lower standard of workplace etiquette?
If we start handing out medals and paid leave to every sailor who jumps overboard, we are going to have a fleet of empty ships. It will become the military equivalent of quiet quitting. We cannot run a global superpower on the honor system, hoping that our personnel simply feel like staying out of the water today.
If we do not penalize unauthorized oceanic entry, we lose the fundamental deterrent that keeps our personnel on the dry side of the hull.
The media keeps harping on the fact that the U.S.S. Lincoln has had its deployment extended multiple times due to regional tensions. They frame this as some sort of unbearable psychological torture. Have these reporters ever dealt with a rolling deadline? When my editor at the syndicate pushes my column's word count up by five hundred words at the last minute, I don't claim it is a human rights violation. I brew another pot of coffee and I deliver. The Navy is simply asking its personnel to do the same, albeit with fewer espresso machines and more incoming ballistic missiles.
My own son, Preston, recently faced a similar crisis of morale during his junior year at Exeter. The rowing team had their season extended by three weeks for a championship regatta, cutting directly into his planned summer internship at a boutique private equity firm. He called me, distraught, threatening to quit the crew.
I told him what the Navy essentially told this sailor: you made a commitment. Preston stayed on the boat. He didn't jump into the freezing river. He pulled his oar, secured a letter of recommendation from the coach, and learned a valuable lesson about perseverance. If a seventeen-year-old can understand the importance of staying inside the vessel, surely a trained military professional can manage it.
We have allowed the language of therapy to infiltrate the chain of command. Extended deployments are hard. They are supposed to be hard. You are sleeping in a metal bunk under a runway. It is not a wellness retreat. If you wanted a job with mental health days and a mindfulness pod, you should have learned to code and gotten a job at a mid-tier tech startup.
The Navy did the right thing. They held the line. They reminded the fleet that gravity and despair are not valid excuses for dereliction of duty. The next time a sailor looks over the edge of the flight deck and contemplates the abyss, they won't just be thinking about their own sadness. They will be thinking about the hit to their pension. And that, ultimately, is what keeps America safe.