‘We Didn’t Plan for This’: How the Iran War Left the USS Abraham Lincoln Short on Supplies

Nearly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln went without basic supplies — including toothpaste, deodorant and soap — at points during the ship’s grueling nine-month deployment. The shortages have been the subject of weeks of reporting and family accounts.

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Retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward, now executive vice president at Shield AI, said that part of the supply problem stems from not having allocated enough resources to the Middle East, since previous national security and defense strategies prioritized the Pacific theater.

“We need to shift gears and recognize that this is a long-term commitment,” Harward said. “We need to rebalance our global force posture to prepare for this long-term presence in CENTCOM — which we should have been doing for the last 40 years.”

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