“Bullets, bandages and beans,” with variations, is an American military adage going back many decades. 

It means the crucial task of the civilian leadership and military officers is to bring the troops the ammo to fight, medical care to keep them fighting and, especially, good food. Even in peacetime, military training is strenuous and requires extra calories. In wartime, even more so.

That’s why it’s inexcusable President Donald Trump and those below him in the chain of command allowed their military fighting Iran to suffer severe supply problems. Most dramatic was the plight of the USS Abraham Lincoln and its sailors. 

On Thursday, The New York Times reported, the carrier finally began sailing home after being deployed 272 days, “save for a brief stop in Guam in December and one in Oman to take on supplies.” 

Called the Abe, it departed San Diego on Nov. 21 last year and was expected to return home by May, three months ago. When asked if the deployment was too long, Trump said, “No, no, not nearly long enough.”

Stars and Stripes reported Aug. 11 that acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao and other senior officials met with Lincoln family members for “intense town hall meetings.” And, “Family members and sailors say the roughly 5,000 service members aboard Lincoln have endured food and water shortages, disrupted mail service and long workdays with little time off.”

The paper noted carriers generally pull into a port every 30 to 45 days for “replenishment, maintenance and crew rest.” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the conditions on the ship were “completely misrepresented.” 

One problem is the main port for the area is Naval Support Activity Bahrain. Stars and Stripes reported on Feb. 28, just hours after Trump attacked Iran: “MANAMA, Bahrain – Iranian missiles and drones struck the headquarters of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and residential buildings elsewhere in the island nation, as retaliatory attacks that began midday Saturday continued into early Sunday.”

In the Times on Aug. 14, John Ismay, a former U.S. Navy carrier officer, reported the Bahrain damage forced the Navy to shift supply operations to the British-controlled base on the island of Diego Garcia, 2,200 miles from the Gulf of Oman.

This shows the poor state of thinking today throughout the U.S. military. Somebody years ago should have realized NSA Bahrain could be attacked, its air defense might fail and it could be disabled in a long war.

Apparently the only planning was for a short war. Trump himself on March 1, just a day into his war, said it would “take four weeks or less.”

But the military’s problems, including the fire and plugged pipes that plagued the USS Gerald R. Ford early in the war, need to be thoroughly addressed. 

Our Editorial Board last week interviewed Democratic Rep. Derek Tran, who is running for reelection in a district which spans parts of Los Angeles County and Orange County. As a veteran himself, he knows what America’s soldiers need.

When I asked about the ongoing problems, he said Congress needs to investigate “the stress and the morale problems that we put our military personnel and their families through.” That can best happen, he explained, if Democrats “win back the House and start holding the administration accountable.” And Democrats “can’t do that without the gavels and without having oversight.”

Here’s an idea, perhaps for Tran. Although Congress has held some hearings on the war, what’s needed is a new Truman Committee, as it was called. Even before the U.S. entered World War II, Sen. Harry S. Truman, a World War I field artillery officer, headed the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. It began in March 1941, also the month my father was drafted into the U.S. Army to serve for five years. He headed it until running for vice president in 1944.

The Senate history said the committee probed “wartime shortages, cost overruns, nepotism in hiring, fraud, and labor strikes.” 

Call it the Tran Committee. The first hearings would find out what really happened aboard the Ford and the Abe.

John Seiler is on the SCNG Editorial Board and a U.S. Army veteran