The long-deployed USS Lincoln returns home to San Diego Bay
CORONADO, Calif. (AP) — The USS Abraham Lincoln returned home to San Diego Bay Thursday after supporting the Iran war during a record long deployment of 265 uninterrupted days at sea that included reports of deteriorating conditions among its crew.
Dozens of sailors stood atop the carrier as it glided past the cityscape of downtown San Diego and neared the dock where cheering families waited, carrying flowers and balloons and ringing cowbells.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flew out to the carrier on Wednesday to give the crew the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest honor a unit can receive that is typically reserved for significant achievement in combat.
Hegseth pushed back against what he said were efforts to turn the “Lincoln into some sort of a symbol, a symbol of dysfunction or a symbol of low morale or a symbol of a failed mission.”
The carrier drew national attention following reports of stress among the crew and poor mental health, as well as supply shortages, including food and hygiene products, during its Iran war mission.
Among the first to depart once the ship docks at the naval base in Coronado will be 64 fathers meeting their babies for the first time, the Navy said.
Waiting for the Lincoln to bring her husband home, sailor Kathy Monterrosa held her six-month-old daughter, Sarahi, outfitted in a tiny blue and white sailor dress.
“She’s our deployment baby,” said Monterrosa, of Virginia Beach, Virginia.
“We are different people now; we are parents now,” she said. “We definitely matured from the last time we saw each other.”
It was tough to hear about the ship’s conditions while she was pregnant, she said. “I was crying a lot and worried. I wasn’t sure if he was OK or not,” she said.
When she finally heard from her husband, he told her it was “pretty bad.”
Alma Solano Velez said her husband gave his family an extensive list of the foods he has been craving over the past 10 months: oxtail, barbecue chicken, broccoli, and shrimp empanadas to name a few.
He had told his wife about “the lack of food and showers” on board and was looking forward to seeing their daughter, who turned 4 while he was away, she said.
The Navy initially downplayed any problems during the deployment, and President Donald Trump commented in August that the Lincoln’s lengthy deployment was “not nearly long enough.”
Hegseth told the crew that “what makes the U.S. military and the U.S. Navy and all these sailors different is that you adapt and that you’re resilient and you overcome — you finish the mission nonetheless.”
The carrier left San Diego in November and arrived in the Middle East in January. U.S. and Israeli forces launched airstrikes against Iran on Feb. 28.
Navy leaders, however, eventually acknowledged there were some issues aboard.
In August, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said the Lincoln maintained adequate food supplies, but because combat operations limited resupply opportunities, meal options were reduced from two to one for a short time. He said in a letter to a Democratic lawmaker seeking information that four nutritionally balanced meals were served daily.
After more than 10 months at sea, the Lincoln’s crew got a stop in Thailand early last month on the way back from the Middle East.
Extended naval deployments can wear on service members who are away from home for long periods and increase strain on the ship and its equipment.
The Navy told lawmakers that eight sailors attempted suicide during the record-setting deployment, though experts say that number is low in a strike group of 6,000 sailors over 10 months.
According to the citation that Hegseth read to the crew, the Lincoln and its strike group executed 3,693 combat missions, launched 450 Tomahawk cruise missiles, shot down 77 one-way attack drones, sank 64 Iranian warships, and destroyed 21 anti-ship cruise missiles.
The Lincoln, which set a record for days in between ports of call, is the second carrier to endure an unusually long deployment to support the war against Iran and to receive the Presidential Unit Citation afterward.
Hegseth in May met the crew of the USS Gerald R. Ford during its return from a 326-day deployment — the longest for an aircraft carrier in the past 50 years and a record in the post-Vietnam War era. The deployment didn’t include as many uninterrupted days at sea as the Lincoln’s 265-day stretch.
Another carrier, the usually Asia-based USS George Washington, relieved the Lincoln in the Middle East in August.
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Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio.
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