USNI News: 80 Sailors from ‘Eisenhower’ Suffered Mental Health Issues While in the Red Sea
The U.S. Navy has revealed the extent of its struggles due to its failure to halt Yemeni military operations in support of Gaza. The commander of the American aircraft carrier Eisenhower stated in an interview with USNI News that they operated “for six months in a difficult and dynamic combat environment that the Navy has not witnessed in decades.”
Commander Ted Pledger of Eisenhower’s Destroyer Squadron 2 confirmed, “Our deployment was the longest and most active, and we had never faced gunfire like we did in the Red Sea.” Additionally, commander Stanley Ponder told USNI News that “fighting Yemeni forces’ aircraft means combating an invisible enemy.” He remarked, “No one has dared to challenge us at sea since World War II.”
In related news, Bradley Stylley, an officer on Eisenhower’s medical team, reported that they suffered mental health losses during the deployment in the Red Sea. According to USNI News, 80 sailors from the Eisenhower experienced mental health issues while deployed in the Red Sea.
These admissions come amid American and British failures to lift the Yemeni blockade on Israeli navigation. The French newspaper Le Monde confirmed that Western armies have failed to deter Yemeni armed forces and halt their naval operations in support of Gaza. The newspaper considered the “qualitative and historical” Operation “Yafa” a significant escalation of the challenging threat posed by Yemen to the enemy entity and its Western allies.
Le Monde published a report titled “Western armies powerless to halt Houthi attacks,” stating that “the deployment of American and European ships in the Red Sea, as well as American and British airstrikes on Yemen, have failed to deter Yemeni forces from continuing their operations.” The report described a drone strike that killed one person and injured several others in Tel Aviv, near the American consulate, on Friday, July 19, as a new escalation in the challenge posed by Yemeni forces to “Israel” and its Western allies. This act was in response to Israeli shelling of Gaza, indicating that the impact of Western operations in the Red Sea appears “extremely limited,” with some official sources now questioning whether the current approach should be reconsidered.
The report quoted Héloïse Fayet, a Middle East defense expert at the French Institute of International Relations, saying, “Seven months after the start, in December 2023, of Operation Prosperity Guardian – led by the Americans and the British – and five months after the launch, at the end of February, of Operation Aspides, under the aegis of the European Union (EU), all indicators are red,” referring to the lack of results achieved.
This acknowledgment adds to a long list of official American and European confirmations of the failure of all Western efforts to halt or curb the escalation of Yemeni operations in support of Gaza, alongside admissions by American military personnel about the unprecedented nature of the battle in the Red Sea since World War II.