USS Ford returns home after 11-month deployment supporting the Iran war and Maduro’s capture

The USS Ger­ald R. Ford, the world largest air­craft car­ri­er, re­turned home to Vir­ginia on Sat­ur­day af­ter an 11-month de­ploy­ment, the longest since the Viet­nam War, that saw it sup­port the U.S. war with Iran and the cap­ture of Nicolás Maduro when he was Venezuela’s pres­i­dent.

The most ad­vanced U.S. war­ship and two ac­com­pa­ny­ing de­stroy­ers docked at Naval Sta­tion Nor­folk with about 5,000 sailors wait­ing to see their fam­i­lies for the first time since June. Be­sides com­bat op­er­a­tions and tra­vers­ing con­ti­nents, the sailors aboard the car­ri­er faced a non­com­bat-re­lat­ed fire that left hun­dreds with­out places to sleep and forced lengthy re­pairs on the Greek is­land of Crete.

De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth was on hand for the ar­rival of the war­ships, which in­clud­ed the de­stroy­er USS Bain­bridge.

Hegseth com­mend­ed the crew of the Bain­bridge for a “job well done.”

“You didn’t just ac­com­plish a mis­sion, you made his­to­ry,” Hegseth said on the de­stroy­er’s deck. “You made a na­tion proud.”

Hegseth al­so spoke to the crews of the USS Ma­han, a de­stroy­er, and the Ford.

The Ford’s 326 days at sea are the most for an air­craft car­ri­er in the past 50 years and broke the record for the longest post-Viet­nam War de­ploy­ment, ac­cord­ing to U.S. Naval In­sti­tute News, a news out­let run by the U.S. Naval In­sti­tute, a non­prof­it or­ga­ni­za­tion. The on­ly longer de­ploy­ments were the 1973 de­ploy­ment of USS Mid­way at 332 days and the 1965 de­ploy­ment of USS Co­ra Sea at 329 days.

The Ford’s long time at sea has raised ques­tions about the im­pact on ser­vice mem­bers who are away from home for long pe­ri­ods as well as about in­creas­ing strain on the ship and its equip­ment be­yond the fire, which start­ed in one of the car­ri­er’s laun­dry spaces.

When the Ford first left Vir­ginia’s coast in June, it head­ed to the Mediter­ranean Sea. It was then rerout­ed to the Caribbean Sea in Oc­to­ber as part of the largest naval buildup in the re­gion in gen­er­a­tions.

The car­ri­er took part in the mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion in Jan­u­ary to cap­ture Maduro. Then it would see more bat­tle, head­ing to­ward the Mid­dle East as ten­sions with Iran es­ca­lat­ed. The Ford par­tic­i­pat­ed in the open­ing days of the Iran war from the Mediter­ranean Sea be­fore go­ing through the Suez Canal and head­ing in­to the Red Sea in ear­ly March.

Tech­ni­cal­ly, the crew of the USS Nimitz was on du­ty and away from home for a to­tal of 341 days in 2020 and 2021. How­ev­er, that in­clud­ed ex­tend­ed iso­la­tion pe­ri­ods ashore in the U.S. meant to help pre­vent the spread of COVID-19.