USS Abraham Lincoln home after record 321 day deployment to the Iran war

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln steamed into its homeport at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado on Thursday, ending a record setting deployment that kept roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines at sea for 321 days, much of it in an active war zone.

The Lincoln left San Diego on November 21, 2025 and was redirected to the Middle East in January, spending more than 200 days conducting airstrikes against Iranian targets and enforcing the United States blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. At one point the ship went 265 days without a port call, a record that surpassed the mark set by the USS Eisenhower in 2020. It docked in Thailand in September, its first stop after more than nine months, before heading home. The USS George Washington has replaced it in the region.

The homecoming was emotional. Hundreds of family members lined the pier, and dozens of sailors met their babies for the first time. But the deployment drew national scrutiny over conditions aboard. Eight sailors attempted suicide during the cruise, according to acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, though none died. Crew and families reported supply shortages, reduced meal options, water contamination, and mail disruptions. Naval leadership said a mental health team was aboard and that acute cases were seen immediately.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the ship on October 7 and awarded the crew the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest unit level decoration in the United States military, for extraordinary heroism. "You have changed the arc of history," Hegseth said. "Ensuring that crazy people, theocrats, never get a nuclear weapon changes the arc of history."

The ship's commanding officer, Captain Dan Keeler, said there was no combat damage and no aircraft lost, adding that "every single sailor and marine that left on this deployment is going home." Navy leaders say the lessons of the Lincoln cruise, including larger pre deployment loadouts and focused morale teams, will be applied to other carriers facing long deployments in the war.