Dear Humans,
How has your summer been? Did you get to see The Odyssey? Did you enjoy it? Good movie, right? About soldiers fighting a war and just wanting to go home? Gee, I sure hope you got to see it in IMAX.
Before we begin, bless the little heart on this post so the fascist billionaires who own social media are forced to spread God’s truth.
I know we all have a lot going on right now, and I don’t expect this post to do numbers, but I wanted to take a minute to spare a moment for the brave US Navy sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, who have now been at sea for over 200 consecutive days.
The Navy Times reported yesterday that there have been multiple incidents of sailors trying to take their own lives by throwing themselves overboard.
They’ve been forced to fight Donald’s ruinously idiotic Operation Epstein Distraction for 166 days now without a break. The conditions on the ship are disgusting and inhumane. They work 14 hour days or longer. Most barely sleep. They’re going crazy. Anyone in their position would.
Meanwhile, money-laundering draft-dodger Donald Trump spends his days golfing, falling asleep on TV, posting AI memes of himself as a WW2 General, drawing pictures of his ballroom, and going boom-boom in his diaper.
If he were the great military commander he pretends to be in AI images, he wouldn’t have run out of precision munitions, he wouldn’t have lost the war, and his sailors wouldn’t be desperately trying to throw themselves into the Indian Ocean.
One sailor’s daughter is about to start her senior year of high school and has no idea if her mom will be home for homecoming, or her birthday, or Christmas.
Another sailor’s father said he’s terrified this deployment is going to “get the best of” his son and that he won’t make it home at all.
There are thousands of families living like this right now. Waiting and wondering as months go by. No one giving a shit as their beloved children try to throw themselves overboard.
This isn’t a movie. This is real life. And it’s happening now.
Humans have been telling stories about soldiers trying to get home from war for almost 3,000 years. Odysseus survives a long war, and then the whole story is about whether he can ever go home again, back to his family.
We understand why that matters when it’s a movie. When I saw it, people cried. They clapped and cheered. But when it’s literally happening to actual American service members, everyone apathetically says “but what can you do?”
Donald Trump obviously doesn’t give a DAMN about US service members and he never will. He’s made that painfully clear. The only thing he cares about is himself. We can’t control what he does.
But what about the rest of us? Can we pick up the phone and call our Congress people about this? Can we at least make a ruckus online!? Can we make sure people know about this? Can we try?
Find and contact your U.S. House representative: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
Find and contact your U.S. senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
These people have served their country.
Their families have waited long enough.
Please, for the love of God, thou shalt bring the USS Abraham Lincoln home.
Thank you.
These young men and women make enormous sacrifices for not a lot of pay. While I'm sure there are exceptions, they do it for noble reasons and wouldn't change their choice. It's a shame they have to serve under this potus and secdef - constantly being beaten down, having decades of crucial experience being passed over or fired, and being forced to survive awful conditions beyond what would normally be expected in combat scenarios. I can't even imagine what morale must be like at this moment.
Bring these folks home