USS Abraham Lincoln returns to San Diego after 322 days and a record stretch at sea

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln returned to Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado on Thursday, ending a deployment of 322 days that the San Diego Union-Tribune ranked as the second-longest by a US Navy ship since the end of the Cold War. Only the USS Gerald R. Ford's 326-day deployment ran longer. The Union-Tribune put the uninterrupted stretch at sea, with no port call, at 264 days, which it described as a record. Stars and Stripes, reporting from the pier, put the no-port-call run above 250 days and the time in a combat zone above 200 days.

The ship left San Diego in November on what had been planned as a Pacific deployment, was sent to the Middle East, and was extended twice. The Union-Tribune reported that the air wing launched some of the first strikes of the US-Israel war on Iran. About 5,000 sailors and Marines were aboard. Families filled the pier in the afternoon heat. The paper noted 67 new fathers in the crew, men meeting children born while the ship was away.

The citation, a day before the pier

On Wednesday, defense secretary Pete Hegseth visited the carrier and presented a Presidential Unit Citation to the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group for extraordinary heroism against enemy forces. Stars and Stripes described the award as the military's highest unit award for valor in combat. Hegseth was on the ship for that visit while it was still inbound, and used the same trip to discuss the December execution of Nidal Hasan, a separate announcement. The citation is the formal close of the combat portion. The pier on Thursday is the close for the families.

The Union-Tribune also reported troubling accounts of food shortages and low morale during the long stretch without a port. Stars and Stripes quoted a sailor, whose name it withheld over concern of reprisal, saying there was nothing he looked forward to more than getting off the ship. Those are reported conditions, not a Navy statement. The Navy's public fact is the return, the duration, and the citation.

What 264 days without a pier changes

A carrier deployment is usually broken by port calls that reset maintenance, mail, and the crew. A run of 264 days without one means the maintenance was done at sea, the mail was whatever the logistics chain flew on, and the 67 new fathers were absent for the births. The Ford comparison is the cleanest benchmark in the reporting: 322 days against 326, with a longer uninterrupted sea stretch on the Lincoln. Counting Thursday, Stars and Stripes put the time away from homeport at 322 days, matching the Union-Tribune.

The ship is home. The citation is awarded. What is not yet published is a Navy accounting of the days underway against the days the Union-Tribune called a record, or a response to the food and morale reports. Alison Bath reported the return for Stars and Stripes. The Union-Tribune's account, with photographs by Howard Lipin, is the other primary local record of the hull coming through San Diego Bay.