WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 -- At some point last week, some number of the roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln reportedly tried to jump from the aircraft carrier into the sea. The Navy has not disclosed how many. What it has disclosed is that the Lincoln has been at sea without a port stop for more than 266 consecutive days, the longest unbroken deployment in the modern United States Navy's history, and that the war against Iran that sent it there has shown no signs of ending.

On Saturday, the USS George Washington began moving from Da Nang, Vietnam, toward the Middle East, according to Al Jazeera. It was not a rescue. It was a rotation.

Asked on Friday at Joint Base Andrews whether the Lincoln's eight-and-a-half mo...