The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) is set to pull into Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego around noon on October 8, closing out a grueling 321-day overseas deployment that began November 21, 2025. Over that stretch the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 3 spent more than 200 days operating in an active combat zone, was diverted from a planned Pacific cruise to the Middle East, and set the second-longest record for consecutive days at sea without a port call since the Vietnam War.
According to the North County Chronicle, citing Navy officials, the Lincoln went 286 days without a port call — the second-longest such stretch for a U.S. carrier since Vietnam, behind only the 326 days logged by the USS Gerald R. Ford earlier this year. In total the ship steamed more than 85,000 nautical miles, transiting the Pacific, the San Bernardino and Surigao straits, and the Strait of Malacca, with operations in the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the North Arabian Sea.
The day before homecoming, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the ship and awarded the crew the Presidential Unit Citation for "extraordinary heroism" — the highest unit-level decoration in the U.S. military. Hegseth told the roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard that they had "changed the arc of history" and rattled off the deployment's statistics: more than 13,000 sorties by Carrier Air Wing 9 totaling 28,500 flight hours, 72 replenishments at sea, and four million meals served to some 4,500 personnel.
The Lincoln left San Diego last November bound for the Pacific and was expected home in the spring. But after the United States and Israel opened their war with Iran in late February, the carrier was redirected to the Middle East, where it remained from January through August supporting Operation Epic Fury — flying airstrikes against Iranian targets and enforcing the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The San Diego-based USS George Washington relieved the Lincoln in late August, and the ship began the long voyage home.
The marathon deployment took a visible toll. Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao confirmed in a letter to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand that eight sailors assigned to the Lincoln's carrier strike group attempted suicide; none died. Reports during the deployment described mental-health struggles, poor living conditions, plumbing problems, shrinking meal options, and low morale, prompting an August town hall in San Diego where military families pressed defense officials for answers. A San Diego lawmaker who visited the ship has called for an investigation, while senior administration officials dismissed some accounts as misrepresented.
Once moored at North Island, the carrier will turn to crew leave, equipment offloads, and family moving arrangements, spokesman Tyler Barker told the Kitsap Sun. Naval Base Kitsap in Washington state is expected to become the Lincoln's new homeport — Puget Sound Naval Shipyard holds the only West Coast dry dock big enough for a Nimitz-class overhaul — though the Navy says operational security keeps it from announcing a date. About 40 members of helicopter squadron HSM-71 returned to North Island last Friday, ahead of the ship itself.