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'One of my biggest concerns' with Trump admin and Pentagon is 'the culture' · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This morning, the wife of the sailor who jumped off
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  Speaker 1: the USS Abraham Lincoln during its record-long deployment is speaking
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  Speaker 1: out to MSNOW, following what she says was a suicide attempt.
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  Speaker 1: Her husband, who we have learned is just 19, is
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: now facing disciplinary charges from the Navy. According to his
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  Speaker 1: wife and the charging documents now reviewed by MSNOW, the
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  Speaker 1: sailor is facing nonjudicial punishment for violating articles of what's
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  Speaker 1: called the Uniform Code of Military Justice, appearing to ignore
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  Speaker 1: clear signs of mental health issues that clearly need addressing.
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  Speaker 1: Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, expressed
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  Speaker 1: his concern about any possible punishment.
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  Speaker 2: When you say you're going to punish a guy who
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  Speaker 2: has these kind of challenges, it's going to result in
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  Speaker 2: nobody wanting to go and seek any help. This guy
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  Speaker 2: was clearly struggling and he wanted to take his own
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  Speaker 2: life and now they're going to dock his pay. He
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  Speaker 2: needs help. He doesn't need to be punished.
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  Speaker 1: In a statement, an official says the Navy is fully
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  Speaker 1: committed to the health and well-being of every sailor and
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  Speaker 1: that asking for help is a sign of strength. We
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  Speaker 1: want to bring in MSNOW Pentagon reporter Priya Sridhar, who
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  Speaker 1: was first to cover the conditions aboard the Abraham Lincoln,
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  Speaker 1: an Iraq War veteran, retired Army Captain Allison Jaslow. Appreciate
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  Speaker 1: both of you being here. Priya, let's get to you
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  Speaker 1: right away if we can. This is clearly a very
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  Speaker 1: unique situation. What specifically is is this sailor being charged with?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so, Peter, they're alleging that he violated two different
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  Speaker 3: articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. One of
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  Speaker 3: them is called malingering, which essentially says that a service
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  Speaker 3: member could have faked an injury or an illness to
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  Speaker 3: get out of work, duty, or service. The other one
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  Speaker 3: is for absence without leave, which means a service member
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  Speaker 3: attempted to leave their required place of duty without proper authority.
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  Speaker 3: So I think this is all raising serious questions, of course,
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  Speaker 3: as to how mental health is handled by the military,
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  Speaker 3: especially at a time that I've heard from so many
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  Speaker 3: family members who are expressing that their loved ones who
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: were on the Lincoln and on a lot of these
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  Speaker 3: carriers who are hitting record-setting deployments are facing serious mental
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  Speaker 3: health concerns, not just because the deployments keeps getting extended
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  Speaker 3: with no end in sight, but also just physical exhaustion
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  Speaker 3: and the poor conditions that we've talked about as far
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  Speaker 3: as the lack of food and supplies. And this wife
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  Speaker 3: had told me that, frankly, she wasn't that surprised that
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  Speaker 3: her husband jumped off the ship because he had been
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  Speaker 3: texting her since about the middle of his deployment, talking
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  Speaker 3: about depression and physical exhaustion.
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  Speaker 1: I want to get into more of the details about
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  Speaker 1: him in a moment with you. But first, Allison, do
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  Speaker 1: you want this idea of malingering? Is that basically the
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  Speaker 1: Navy saying we don't believe that you had some mental
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  Speaker 1: health challenges here? What's the takeaway of that?
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  Speaker 4: I mean, the first thing I would say is it's
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  Speaker 4: not uncommon for soldiers or sailors to actually be charged
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  Speaker 4: with something like this. As somebody who deployed a couple
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  Speaker 4: of times myself, we definitely had people freak out before
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  Speaker 4: deployments and exhibit bizarre behavior and ended up being charged
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  Speaker 4: under the UCMJ. But I think in this instance, it's
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  Speaker 4: very important that first his mental health is prioritized. And
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  Speaker 4: there should be a physician who can tell you if
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  Speaker 4: there is a there there or whether he's up to
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  Speaker 4: something else. And I think the priority needs to be
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  Speaker 4: not just on his mental health, but I'm sure there
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  Speaker 4: are other sailors who were dealing with a lot of.
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  Speaker 4: you know, stress because not just the extended deployment, but
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  Speaker 4: the goalposts being moved in terms of like when they
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  Speaker 4: were actually coming home and managing that expectation is very
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  Speaker 4: important for the command to do. And it's very apparent
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  Speaker 4: to me, at least, that they did not do a
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  Speaker 4: successful job.
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  Speaker 1: And what's compelling is the backdrop to this, of course,
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  Speaker 1: is under the new defense, not new, the defense secretary,
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  Speaker 1: Pete Hegstead, there has been such a focus on hyper masculinity,
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  Speaker 1: you know, this like warrior ethos that he talks about.
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  Speaker 1: He's working out with the troops here. which is to
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  Speaker 1: suggest that anybody who is outside of that is weak. Now,
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  Speaker 1: of course, in their statement, they say that acknowledging mental
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  Speaker 1: health issues is a sign of strength. But does the
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  Speaker 1: culture here, does the culture have an impact on a
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  Speaker 1: moment like this?
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  Speaker 4: I mean, one of my biggest concerns about the current
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  Speaker 4: administration and how they're like managing the Department of Defense
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  Speaker 4: is just the culture that's there. And honestly, the cascading
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  Speaker 4: impacts of that culture, whether it be to whether women
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  Speaker 4: feel comfortable in the force right now or even mental health,
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  Speaker 4: because honestly, like it's not even, you know, the horrors
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  Speaker 4: of war that. Every sailor or service member is dealing with. Oftentimes,
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  Speaker 4: there are things going on at home. And we have
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  Speaker 4: such a hyper-connected military these days. This is not Vietnam.
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  Speaker 4: This is not World War II. And you know when
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  Speaker 4: your spouse is cheating on you back at home. You
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  Speaker 4: know when your wife has had, in this case, a
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  Speaker 4: baby that you can't see.
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  Speaker 1: Which is hard.
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  Speaker 4: Those are hard calls to make as to whether you
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  Speaker 4: can get a service member back home with their family.
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  Speaker 4: But those sometimes are the things that are causing you
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  Speaker 4: as much duress as actually being on the front lines.
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk about this specific case a little bit more.
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  Speaker 1: We learned some more details about him. I didn't know
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  Speaker 1: that he was 19. His wife is also 19. They
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  Speaker 1: had a three and a half year old son just
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  Speaker 1: had a baby daughter while he's been away. What more
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  Speaker 1: are we learning about his circumstances and how what he
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  Speaker 1: has communicated about them?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. And he, you know, according to his wife, actually
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  Speaker 3: joined the military to try to provide for his young family.
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  Speaker 3: And one of the things he expressed to her in
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  Speaker 3: the text messages that he sent was that he felt
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  Speaker 3: really frustrated by how bad the Wi-Fi was on the ship,
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  Speaker 3: which sounds like a silly thing. But if that is
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  Speaker 3: your only connection to home and so much is happening,
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  Speaker 3: the birth of his child, he felt as though he
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  Speaker 3: was disconnected. And one of the last messages that he
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  Speaker 3: sent to her I want to read to you. He
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  Speaker 3: essentially said, I think the boat is finally getting to me.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think I can do another deployment after this.
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  Speaker 3: And I don't even know if I can finish this deployment. So,
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  Speaker 3: you know, really ominous knowing what happened next. And according
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  Speaker 3: to this wife, he did go to his chain of
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  Speaker 3: command several times and the ship's medical team. expressing that
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  Speaker 3: he was worried about the thoughts that were going through
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  Speaker 3: his head when he got medically evacuated from the ship.
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  Speaker 3: He's now back in San Diego. He asked his chain
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  Speaker 3: of command, apparently, according to the wife, for his paternity leave.
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  Speaker 3: That was denied. He was put in a hospital for
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  Speaker 3: five days, and the wife says that the main focus
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  Speaker 3: was on his physical health. They were monitoring his vitals.
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  Speaker 3: He didn't actually have a mental health therapy appointment, Peter,
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  Speaker 3: until yesterday, which was almost two weeks after he got
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  Speaker 3: back to San Diego. So the wife really feels as
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  Speaker 3: though they're prioritizing this disciplinary review board as opposed to
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  Speaker 3: treatment here. And that's actually stressing him out even more.
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  Speaker 1: Well, again, the reminder. is that this guy is 19.
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  Speaker 1: His wife is 19, right? Like we talk about these
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  Speaker 1: service members, like they are, this is a young guy
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  Speaker 1: who's been gone since he turned 18. He's had his
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  Speaker 1: first child when he was 15 or 16 years old.
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  Speaker 1: This is a lot on his plate. What more needs
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  Speaker 1: to be done, Allison, right now? We're in the middle
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  Speaker 1: of a war that the president said would be a
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  Speaker 1: short excursion, would be done within weeks. I know this
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  Speaker 1: is not a forever war like Iraq right now, something,
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  Speaker 1: or Afghanistan that lasted for decades. But the impact is
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  Speaker 1: real for folks. They have no sense when this thing
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  Speaker 1: is going to end or how long their service is
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  Speaker 1: going to be.
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  Speaker 4: Well, we can't turn back time. But, you know, I
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  Speaker 4: would say I was telling her earlier, you know, there's
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  Speaker 4: an old saying in the military, a failure to plan
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  Speaker 4: is a plan to fail. And I think what we're
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  Speaker 4: seeing here is the impact of not planning appropriately for
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  Speaker 4: what we were getting ourselves into here. It's not just
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  Speaker 4: not being able to get sailors back to port so
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  Speaker 4: that they can have some decompression time and or get
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  Speaker 4: them back to their families. It's also not having the
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  Speaker 4: logistics support to make sure that they're fed and they
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  Speaker 4: have proper hygiene materials on their ships. It's also causing
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  Speaker 4: an Air Force carrier, not the USS Lincoln, but the
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  Speaker 4: Gerald Ford, to have to go from Venezuela to to
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  Speaker 4: the Middle East when all of this unfolded earlier. So,
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  Speaker 4: you know, I'm not sure what's happening inside the Pentagon
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  Speaker 4: right now, but I hope that they are figuring out
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  Speaker 4: a way to get on top of sort of the
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  Speaker 4: cascading impacts that have happened from a clear failure to
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  Speaker 4: plan here, because I'm not sure, regardless of what the
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  Speaker 4: president says, that we're going to get out of this,
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  Speaker 4: you know, conflict, whatever our involvement is characterized as right
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  Speaker 4: now in the Middle East anytime soon. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Julia Curley, one of the top CIA officers who spoke
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  Speaker 1: first to us here on MSNOW, detailed the exact same concern,
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  Speaker 1: which is that there was no planning and that this
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  Speaker 1: all Whether you agree or disagree with the war, there
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  Speaker 1: could have been a plan in place that would have
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  Speaker 1: made sure these sailors and others were getting the care
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  Speaker 1: and the attention that they needed ahead of this effort.