The USS Abraham Lincoln is ending a deployment the Navy would rather explain than defend.
Across that stretch, the strike group has enforced a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports and, by the Navy's own account, shot down "hundreds and hundreds" of missile and drone attacks aimed at American and allied forces in the region.
Families told reporters that multiple crew members had attempted to jump overboard during the deployment.
Why the Navy's Own Leadership Points This Carrier at Bremerton The Lincoln is currently homeported at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, and Cao's announcement this week was about that homecoming, not a permanent relocation.
No Navy official, including Cao in this week's announcement, has put a date on a Bremerton homeport shift, and nothing about the Lincoln's current return to San Diego commits the ship to Kitsap on any fixed timeline.
The carrier is coming home after a 266-day deployment marked by a mental-health crisis the Navy spent months denying. Separately, its own admiral says its next homeport will likely be Bremerton.