Aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln shatters US Navy's record for longest post-Cold War deployment with 10-month around-the-world tour
When the Lincoln left Norfolk, Va. on April 1, 2019, she was expected to deploy for seven months. The flattop deployed with Carrier Air Wing 7, cruiser Leyte Gulf, and destroyers Mason, Bainbridge and Nitze, a force of more than 6,000 people.
Shortly after the deployment began, the powerful armada sailed through the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean, at one point sending a message to Russia in joint operations with the USS John C. Stennis.
Source: Business Insider
On May 5, 2019, plans unexpectedly changed. The Trump administration ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln to the Middle East to send an "unmistakable message" to Iran.
Source: White House
Tensions between the US and Iran have sharply increased over the past year, with the two countries occasionally exchanging fire and inching dangerously close to war.
The Lincoln did not leave the Middle East for seven months — which had been the expected length of the entire deployment. In December, the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, which suffered an electrical malfunction that forced the extension of the Lincoln's deployment, arrived in the region, allowing CVN-72 to start making its way toward its new home port in San Diego, Calif.
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CVN-72's extra-long deployment was extended a total of four times. "This certainly was outside what anybody would characterize as a normal" deployment, Capt. Walter Slaughter, the Lincoln's commanding officer, told Military.com. "There were extraordinary circumstances."
Source: Military.com
Families of crew members, some of which moved across the country when the ship changed ports, have criticized the extended deployment.
"That's sometimes how it goes," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said Wednesday. "I don't make any apologies for that," he added, saying that if he had a better solution, he would have offered it.
Source: Military.com
The previous record for the longest post-Cold War deployment was set by the Lincoln on May 6, 2003, when this flattop finally returned to its home port after a 290-day deployment that began on July 20, 2002. That extended deployment supported the US's invasion of Iraq that began on March 20, 2003.
Source: US Navy
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