Washington – The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, whose crew faced food shortages and mental health issues caused by a deployment of nearly 322 days in support of the war against Iran, is scheduled to return this Thursday (8) to its home port in San Diego.
Thousands of friends and family of the crew are expected to gather on the pier to greet the ship. By a long-standing Navy tradition, sailors whose spouses gave birth during the deployment will be among the first to disembark to meet their sons and daughters.
Read more: After 9 months of mission and many complaints, the US aircraft carrier leaves the Middle East
The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who flew to the Lincoln from San Diego on Tuesday to accompany the ship on its final stretch, acknowledged the long deployment in a speech to the crew, but criticized reports of logistical problems as exaggerated. He also awarded the crew the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest decoration that can be bestowed on a unit of the Navy or Marine Corps for valorous service.
“There have been some people in the media who tried to turn the USS Abraham Lincoln into some kind of symbol — a symbol of dysfunction or a symbol of low morale or a symbol of a failed mission,” Hegseth said, speaking into a microphone before a crowd of sailors. “And what I see here now and when I talk to your leadership — and I have had the opportunity to talk with many of you — I know that it is exactly the opposite.”
The Lincoln and other ships began to face logistical problems after Iran destroyed the Navy’s main hub in the Middle East in Manama, Bahrain, in response to the start of the war by the United States and Israel on February 28.
With Iran’s ballistic missiles capable of placing all ports of the Arabian Peninsula at risk of attack, Navy warships in the region began to suffer shortages of food, fuel and other supplies, as the service shifted its supply hub to the British island of Diego Garcia, about 3,500 km away.
Read more: 8 sailors from the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier attempted suicide, says US Navy
Close to the record
The deployment for the Lincoln’s 5,000-strong crew began before the war, when the ship left San Diego on November 21, 2025. It spent almost a month at sea before docking at Guam Naval Base for a brief refueling stop.
The Lincoln nearly broke the record for the longest deployment of an aircraft carrier since the Vietnam War.
The USS Gerald R. Ford holds that record with a 327-day deployment. But, unlike the Lincoln, the Ford’s crew was able to disembark in ports in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean before sailing into the Arabian Sea before the start of the war.
The war with Iran placed the Navy’s fleet of 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers under enormous pressure. Two carriers, the John C. Stennis and the Harry S. Truman, are unavailable due to refueling their nuclear reactors. Five others have already played a role in the war.
In July, Ford went into a yard for long-delayed maintenance, and the 50-year-old Nimitz is scheduled to be decommissioned next year.
That leaves only the Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Carl Vinson and the Ronald Reagan as potentially available for deployment if the war, which is now in its eighth month.
Read more: The Gerald R. Ford supercarrier hides a dirty secret: the sewage system collapsed
Relentless Pace
The tempo of operations for the Lincoln and its crew during the extended deployment was relentless, as the ship played a major role in the aerial campaign over Iran. In August, a Navy official said the ship launched more than 10,000 sortie groups and dropped more than 680,000 kilograms of munitions during the conflict.
The aircraft aboard the Lincoln also played a key role in enforcing President Donald Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports.
In early May, an F/A-18 Super Hornet launched from the Lincoln fired its 20 mm cannon at the rudders of an Iranian-flagged tanker, the M/T Hasna, disabling the vessel as it tried to pass through the blockade line.
A month later, another Super Hornet from the Lincoln fired a precision munition at the engine rooms of the Palau-flagged tanker M/T Marivex, in the Gulf of Oman, as it sailed toward Iran. The ship’s 24 crew members were rescued by an Omani military helicopter.
In his remarks on Wednesday, Hegseth said the prolonged deployment was worth it, crediting the crew with demonstrating enormous resilience.
“What makes the U.S. Armed Forces, the U.S. Navy, and all these sailors different is that you adapt, you are resilient, and you overcome,” he added. “You complete the mission in any way. Yes, it’s hard. That’s why you’re here, and you do hard and complex things. But you wholeheartedly believe in this mission.”
“My heart swells with pride to stand before you all,” he added.
Reports of Shortages
The first signs of food shortages came from the families of Lincoln sailors, who sent reporters photos of modest meals served on the ship while supplies were low. Many families tried to send care packages to their loved ones to compensate for the shortfall, only to have their mail lost, destroyed, or delivered months late.
The reports angered Navy leaders, who downplayed the problems.
In a social-media post in August, Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao accused reporters of portraying the Lincoln’s sailors as “victims.” Six days later, the aircraft carrier left the Arabian Sea to begin its journey home, after another carrier, the USS George Washington, based in Japan, took its place.
The following month, in response to questions from Democratic lawmakers, Cao acknowledged that eight Lincoln strike group sailors had attempted to take their own lives. One leaped into the sea, and another tried to do so before being stopped by shipmates.
When asked on August 14 about the problems reported aboard the Lincoln, Trump dismissed the concerns raised by the sailors’ families. When pressed about whether he was worried about the crew’s mental health and whether he thought the deployment had lasted too long, the president said: “No. No. No.” He added that the deployment — then more than eight months — had not been “even close to long enough.”
In total, the Lincoln’s crew spent nearly nine and a half months at sea without a break until the Lincoln docked in Pattaya, Thailand, on September 2, for five days of rest.
On September 18, the Lincoln arrived on U.S. soil during a brief stop in Guam. The crew was authorized to disembark the ship, provided they remained on the local naval base.
Celebration and Relief
The ship’s arrival is expected to be a moment of celebration.
Jack Buckley, a sailor who runs a boat-tour company, will escort friends and family of the crew as the ship sails through San Diego Bay.
“When the sailors are lined up along the rail, we’ll be there waving to them,” Buckley said. “The families with me — each of them has a son or daughter aboard. It will be emotional and moving for them.”
Buckley said there will likely be as many as 200 private and charter boats in the bay as the Lincoln approaches.
“The Abe Lincoln has been away for a very long time,” he said, “and it’s great to have them back.”
This article was originally published in The New York Times.
c.2026 The New York Times Company
