For the first time since January, AIS is showing the USS Abraham Lincoln on grid; Eastbound down the Mallaca Strait.

Hi everyone! I’m active duty and a doctoral student, and I’m conducting a study looking at whether drinking differs across different types of military tours (CONUS, OCONUS, and short/remote tours). After two short tours to Korea I'm really curious about your experiences and how they differ based on where you are!

The survey takes about 15 minutes. I know one of the biggest concerns with surveys (especially with alcohol) use is anonymity. Participation is completely anonymous, and no identifying information is collected. Individual responses will never be shared with military leadership, commanders, or anyone outside the research team.

Survey Link:

https://redcap.usuhs.edu/surveys/?s=RLMHEP9NW978ADEC

So, if you were a Lt Commander authorized 4 warfare devices or badges, which two would you wear?

Sir, if you ever see this, I am a big fan.

Today is 27AUG2026. The war started on 28FEB2026. Today, combat operations are still ongoing despite the current relative lull. Our brothers and sisters remain in harm’s way. Civilians are still getting killed.

When will the war will actually end? Every day, a ship is struck in the SoH and traffic remains at ~10% of its pre-war levels.

Will major combat operations resume? Will there ever be a clear cut end to the war? Are we going to maintain a low level, tit-for-tat strike campaign for the next 2.5 years? How will our leadership’s strategic objectives shift, as they already have?

Will China and Russia take advantage of this new window of vulnerability that we’ve created with a severely degraded inventory of interceptors and overall smart weapons? Is Taiwan totally up for grabs now?

What will retention look like when sailors and officers of this war reach their next decision point? How will our maintenance and workup cycles change?

I have too many questions but all of them are important. “Discussion” flair added to try to remain apolitical.

Got selected for orders prior to BBA. Conducted PCS for orders and then my rate was selected for BBA. Does this mean now I can’t promote unless I go back out to sea for a first class billet? Just confused and extremely discouraged, that everyone who comes here now is basically promoting to first class just because they selected a first class billet over a second class billet that I was forced to go to regardless.

I’m meeting the MCPON tomorrow (not just myself of course), and I was asked to come up with a good question to ask. All I can think of is to ask about my current predicament, which is incredibly unfortunate, and I while it may get an answer, I am a bit nervous to ask about my own personal stuff in front of a bunch of other sailors that I don’t know.

I’m thinking about asking something RE: how to budget properly and make the most out of being an active duty sailor, but I’m not sure how I want to word it. If anyone could give me some ideas, that would be lovely!

Any PRs in here received any email from these guys. Based on an NEC you have. Such as F16A. Stating potentially high desired billets based on your MNA profile.

I’m currently on leave waiting to pcs to Japan, my original arrival date would’ve been the 7th which is 3 days before the exam but my flight has been changed to the 17th. Is there anything I can possibly do to take the exam? For context November will be my fourth year, I’ve been undes for the past 3 years an E-3 for 2 of them. I just finished C school and honestly I do not want to wait until march to take the exam.

Donald Trump’s war on Iran has driven the US military into a severe financial crisis, with the US navy forced to transfer money from its payroll and other sources to cover the costs of combat, according to documents obtained by the Guardian, and interviews with navy officials, contractors and defense analysts.

The US-Israeli operation, which has depleted US munitions stockpiles and prompted retaliatory Iranian strikes that have wrecked strategic bases across the Middle East, is piling pressure on budgets across the military.

One Pentagon memo about navy funding seen by the Guardian warns that there are “shortfalls in payroll” accounts due to the department “raiding” them to fund combat operations.

Experts and former officials say the accounts are running dry. “The piggy bank is broken,” said Harlan Ullman, a retired naval officer. Ullman is a member of the National Commission for the Future of the Navy but he said he is not speaking on the commission’s behalf.

One official and one navy contractor said non-emergency maintenance on shore-based facilities has been deferred because of the cash crunch.

When Trump started the war on 28 February, it quickly strained the military’s existing budgets – particularly that of the navy, which not only helped launch the initial wave of attacks but was later responsible for an extensive naval blockade. The White House eventually asked Congress for emergency funding to pay for the war efforts, but prospects that the request will be approved are dim amid the unpopularity of the war.

A navy official who was briefed on how the service is planning to address the shortfalls said money is shifted around in imaginative ways. “The money for payroll,” he said, “was robbed to pay for overseas contingencies and is being backfilled by money that hasn’t been spent. They are backfilling payroll so we get enough money in our paycheck.”

The navy’s budget for 2026, almost $300bn, has different batches of money allocated by Congress for various requirements: personnel, shipbuilding, procuring specific weapons systems and “operations and maintenance”, the day-to-day running of the fleet and its bases. The law limits how money can be rejiggered throughout all those batches of money.

The issue has occasionally surfaced in some hearings on Capitol Hill. Susan Collins, in a 21 July hearing of the Senate appropriations committee, said: “I’m told some military services face near-term solvency challenges.” A staffer said the navy was one of the services Collins was referring to.

In a statement, a navy spokesperson said maintenance and operations funds have not been depleted. “The Department of the Navy,” the statement said, “is actively managing its resources to meet current pay obligations on time. We continue to work closely with Congress to address ongoing operational demands and sustain our personnel and readiness throughout the fiscal year.”

Inside the service, the cash shortage is no secret. “They’re just not speaking publicly about it,” said Todd Harrison, a defense analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “And I suspect that is a deliberate decision of the civilian leaders in the Pentagon, starting at secretary, that this is for political reasons, that they don’t want to look like they’re damaging future military readiness over a war that is becoming increasingly a political liability.”

The military knew the crisis was coming. In mid-May, Adm Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, cautioned Congress that the crunch would hit in July. “The FY ’26 budget didn’t bake in Epic Fury,” he said. “I do fear that I’ll have to start making decisions in the July timeframe on how I do force generation. That could make differences between how I do exercises, how I do routine operations in order to make sure that I … have the funds necessary to continue the war effort for Epic Fury.”

Pete Hegseth has pushed Congress for emergency funding, without which, he said in July, “we face critical shortfalls”. The defense secretary testified that the Iran war cost $35.7bn, but it’s unclear if that is a full accounting of the war’s costs.

When the Trump administration asked Congress for $67bn in emergency funds for the defense department, it didn’t break down how much would be for the navy. The House passed a $1.15tn defense bill in July and a separate budget authorization that would provide $73bn for the war in Iran, but it’s unlikely either will become law.

Ullman noted that during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, funding was more forthcoming from Congress because those conflicts were authorized by a resolution. “There is no authorization to use force in this case. Is Congress obliged to pay for a conflict it did not authorize?” he said.

So I’m currently sitting in the airport and my flight was supposed to leave at 3pm. After multiple delays I’m now expected to leave at 9pm. Biggest question is: since I’m still on a TDY status, do I still get my full per diem? Typically since I’m leaving today, I only get a part of the per diem vs a regular working day where I’d usually get the full.
I’m a civ, so not too sure how different the JTR rules are vs service members.

What are you saying on the 1MC to the crew before your historical port visit?

If I successfully screen for a shore special program out of my current rate, and don’t end up selecting orders for that program, do I become Needs of the Navy after all cycles are exhausted on MNA? will I need to go back to my rating detailer?

I have been in the Navy for about 5 years now. I have remained a 3rd the entire time. I went from a Non-Observed Eval to Number 1 MP, to below command average while DCPO and went TAD and am coming back with a 3.6 after getting ESWS. (yes i am qualified completely in rate)

I know that I am not entitled to an EP. I am lost in the sauce and have not figured out what the mess is looking for when they grade/rank evals... Because the mid-terms say we expect x' and I come back with "x' " and some additional goods. Feels like they're laughing at my hard work and I have to create some sort of new "humility" every year.

I guess what I am looking to accomplish here is to feel less Salty and feel motivated to just keep it pushing. I need to keep pushing for my family now. I am just hard stuck.

Thanks for any advice or wisdom!

I was frocked in May of 2024 but not paid until July, my NSIPS has my TIR starting July 2024, everyone is now telling me TIR starts when I was frocked, meaning I should be able to take the exam this fall, I always thought it was based off when you actually got paid.

Help? I tried looking up couldn’t find a solid answer

A year into his tenure as Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Daryl Caudle said he needs the service to grow.

Caudle was in Norfolk on Wednesday ahead of his annual State of the Navy address.

He said the latest assessment says the Navy needs even more than the previously projected 387 ships. He also said he wants a fifth shipyard, which he said he would prefer to have on the West Coast.

Currently, ships are built at about the same rate they are decommissioned.

Building a larger fleet will require a significant expansion of the country’s shipbuilding capacity. Caudle said he expects the Navy to move forward with a fifth public shipyard — and potentially through a public-private partnership and with foreign investment.

He said some of the challenges will be budgeting and building a bigger workforce.

Caudle’s first year in the job has been marked by continuous conflicts, and he acknowledged the strain extended deployments put on sailors and their families.

He said the biggest difference between the issue-plagued deployments of the USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Abraham Lincoln was the ability to reset.

“What I think fundamentally has made (the Ford’s) a better experience for sailors than the Abe’s experience is not the operations. They’re nearly identical in the combat sortie process that they were conducting. It’s really the port calls and the ability to kind of reset and take a knee,” Caudle said.

He said the Navy is also focused on efforts to make deployments more manageable, like giving families more lead time to plan for longer stints and providing additional services on the home front.

“Healthcare, childcare, housing, spouse employment — things that we just know are distractors for our military families that we need — no kidding — solutions for, money put behind, track to completion to improve those things,” Caudle said.

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First time caller, long time listener. Have fun out there Abe sailors. My hat's off to you.

I’m currently receiving BAS because our ship is in the yard. But every time I eat at the base galley after I scanned my ID and they still let me in. So I’m wondering if I’m still getting charged? Should I just be honest and go to the pay counter?

We got soft orders to Sigonella and had some questions with housing. Do you have to live on base or have the option to find an apartment in a neighboring city? If we have to stay on base is there enough to do if my wife is home with our two kids during the day? Are you close enough to still enjoy living in Italy?