As I say these words, the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is heading home after an extended deployment
that put it in the news.
I'm guessing you might have seen some of the coverage.
Their time at sea was extended to over nine months, taking a toll on the crew.
There were reported food shortages, resupply issues, exhaustion that comes from months at sea with no break at all.
Stars and Stripes and Navy Times reported sailors attempting to jump overboard.
The other journalists were unable to get that confirmed.
What is life on this kind of Navy ship like during this kind of deployment?
Well, years ago, we did an episode of our show on an aircraft carrier
during a war in the same waters the Lincoln was in, the Arabian Sea.
This is just a few months after September 11th.
We were on the USS Stennis.
They were dropping bombs in Afghanistan in the early stages of that war.
And on that show, you really get a sense of the drudgery of so many of the jobs
and also just how dangerous some of the jobs are.
It is a very vivid picture.
And so today, with the crew of the Lincoln in mind, we thought we would play you that hour.
It is, I have to say, a surprisingly entertaining episode.
We saw many things that surprised us, starting with the interview that kicked off the hour.
Let's just jump in.