The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford is expected home in Norfolk, Va., on Saturday, after completing the longest deployment by a U.S. warship since the Vietnam War.
What began on June 24 as a peacetime cruise with scheduled port calls in the Mediterranean and the North Sea changed drastically in October when the ship was in Split, Croatia.
While the Ford was in port, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered it to the Caribbean in the run-up to the U.S. commando raid in January that seized President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Then, Mr. Hegseth sent the ship to the Middle East in preparation for the war against Iran.
Along the way, the crew endured a major fire that destroyed the sleeping area for hundreds of sailors, complaints about food shortages, delays in receiving mail and mechanical problems with the gear that launches and recovers warplanes on the ship’s flight deck.
About 4,500 sailors serve on carriers like the Ford when all of the aircraft and aviators are aboard.
Warship deployments are typically scheduled to last six months, but those for aircraft carriers can sometimes stretch into eight months. Pushing beyond that, as the Navy has done with the Ford, can strain both the crew as well as the mechanical well-being of the ship itself.