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CORONADO, Calif. \u2014<\/p>\nCORONADO, Calif. \u2014<\/p>\n
The USS Abraham Lincoln<\/a> returned home to San Diego Bay Thursday after supporting the Iran war<\/a> during a record long deployment of 265 uninterrupted days at sea<\/a> that included reports of deteriorating conditions among its crew.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n LIVE | USS Abraham Lincoln returns to San Diego after extended deploymentWatch on<\/a><\/p>\n Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a> flew out to the carrier on Wednesday to give the crew the Presidential Unit Citation<\/a>, the highest honor a unit can receive that is typically reserved for significant achievement in combat.<\/p>\n Hegseth pushed back against what he said were efforts to turn the \u201cLincoln into some sort of a symbol, a symbol of dysfunction or a symbol of low morale or a symbol of a failed mission.\u201d<\/p>\n The carrier drew national attention<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s our deployment baby,\u201d said Monterrosa, of Virginia Beach, Virginia.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are different people now; we are parents now,\u201d she said. \u201cWe definitely matured from the last time we saw each other.\u201d<\/p>\n It was tough to hear about the ship\u2019s conditions while she was pregnant, she said. \u201cI was crying a lot and worried. I wasn\u2019t sure if he was OK or not,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n When she finally heard from her husband, he told her it was \u201cpretty bad.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n He had told his wife about \u201cthe lack of food and showers\u201d on board and was looking forward to seeing their daughter, who turned 4 while he was away, she said.<\/p>\n The Navy initially downplayed problems on the carrier<\/p>\n The Navy initially downplayed any problems during the deployment, and President Donald Trump commented in August that the Lincoln\u2019s lengthy deployment was \u201cnot nearly long enough.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Hegseth told the crew that \u201cwhat makes the U.S. military and the U.S. Navy and all these sailors different is that you adapt and that you\u2019re resilient and you overcome \u2014 you finish the mission nonetheless.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Navy leaders, however, eventually acknowledged there were some issues aboard.<\/p>\n In August, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n After more than 10 months at sea, the Lincoln\u2019s crew got a stop in Thailand<\/a> early last month on the way back from the Middle East.<\/p>\n Long deployments can tax service members<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The Navy told lawmakers that eight sailors attempted suicide<\/a> during the record-setting deployment, though experts say that number is low in a strike group of 6,000 sailors over 10 months.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Hegseth in May met the crew of the USS Gerald R. Ford<\/a> during its return from a 326-day deployment \u2014 the longest for an aircraft carrier in the past 50 years and a record in the post-Vietnam War era. The deployment didn\u2019t include as many uninterrupted days at sea as the Lincoln\u2019s 265-day stretch.<\/p>\n Another carrier, the usually Asia-based USS George Washington<\/a>, relieved the Lincoln in the Middle East in August.<\/p>\n See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | Download our app<\/a> | Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a> | Make KCRA a preferred news source in Google<\/a> <\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORONADO, Calif. \u2014 The USS Abraham Lincoln returned home to San Diego Bay Thursday after supporting the Iran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[191108,37026,7,5493,191104,5196,93309,9066,5923,7716,191105,191107,12968,74,10033,76,75,191109,191110,42452,179985,191106],"class_list":["post-489576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-265-days","tag-aircraft-carrier","tag-california","tag-coronado","tag-defense-secretary","tag-downtown-san-diego","tag-iran-war","tag-middle-east","tag-navy","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-presidential-unit-citation","tag-record-deployment","tag-sailors","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-bay","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-thailand-stop","tag-tomahawk-missiles","tag-uss-abraham-lincoln","tag-uss-george-washington","tag-uss-gerald-r-ford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}