According to three officials familiar with the incident, the main circulation pump that cools the engine malfunctioned and needed replacing while the ship was en route to the Middle East. The Boxer had accelerated its deployment from the U.S. West Coast weeks ahead of schedule to help reinforce troops fighting against Iran. Instead of continuing to the Arabian Sea, the warship and its thousands of Marines and sailors waited for replacement parts and repairs at the U.S.-U.K. base on the tiny, remote Diego Garcia coral atoll in the Indian Ocean. "USS Boxer was temporarily sidelined during a critical period to control a maritime strait," one official told Newsmax, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press. Another official, frustrated by the situation, said the Marines had deployed early aboard Boxer "to give our leaders more options." "That option was taken away for a while because of yet another maintenance issue with an amphib," the official said, using the more common name for an amphibious warship.

By the time the repairs were completed, the three ships of the USS Boxer amphibious ready group — USS Boxer, USS Comstock, and USS Portland — were redirected to the Strait of Malacca in U.S. Pacific Command to conduct maritime interdictions of vessels sanctioned for providing material support to Iran. Marines with the amphibious ready group interdicted the stateless oil tanker M/T Tifani on April 21, according to U.S. Central Command. The Boxer ready group is currently taking part in operations against Iran in the Middle East, as President Donald Trump declared the tenuous ceasefire with Tehran was "over." One official told Newsmax the Boxer was in good shape when it deployed in March, and the Navy crew is doing all it can to keep its amphibious ship going while paying the price for years of reduced fleet inventory and availability. The Boxer incident has not been previously reported, and it highlights how military leaders continue to face limited mission options for the Marine Corps' most sought-after rapid response units due to problems with amphibious ships. Newsmax broke the news last month that a shortage of sea-ready amphibious ships likely will keep the Marine Corps from deploying another full-sized rapid response force aboard vessels for almost a year. The development severely curtails the service's ability to respond to crises around the globe at a period that coincides with China's stated timeline for potential action against Taiwan.

The Army’s recently announced low cost interceptor program is a step in the right direction for a new era of combat, but could run into obstacles when it comes to production capacity, budget constraints and safety and maturity standards, according to analysts and a former defense official. Their analysis comes two weeks after the Army officially launched its LCI program, created to end the days of relying exclusively on multimillion-dollar exquisite systems to defeat airborne threats, especially low cost drones that only cost a few thousand dollars. Such reasoning is “really sensible,” Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, told Breaking Defense. “The existing threat is actually low-end systems,” Pettyjohn said in a recent interview, pointing to lessons learned from Operation Epic Fury. “We need more, cheaper missiles, we can’t just focus on the high-end threat anymore.” The US military is experiencing a high “burn rate” of its exquisite systems like PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancers and the Navy’s SM-3 and SM-6 missiles to defeat Iranian-made Shahed drones and other low cost systems, she said. The solution: “Have a cheaper interceptor that can really bolster your stockpiles and allow you to more cost effectively use the air defense systems that have proven to be very effective to defeat these cheaper systems.”

John Ferrari, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former two-star Army general who served as the service’s director of program analysis and evaluation, said he wished the Army stood up such a program “five years ago.” Ferrari said he believes the Army can produce LCIs in mass quantities by working with new vendors and venture capital-backed firms that leverage commercial practices and facilities used for civilian products, instead of bespoke defense equipment and factories. “I think what you’re going to see actually is new firms up to the market, right, like the Andurils and other firms,” he said. “They can just buy commercial equipment, like you just need a factory floor, a big factory floor. Then you buy commercial equipment, and then you start producing these things.” Another former defense official who backed the LCI program told Breaking Defense the service has an “urgency of need” to field LCIs. Like Ferrari, the ex-official predicted the Army will be able to scale LCIs quickly due to VC-backed companies. “I know a lot of companies are investing in this space, especially in the VC world. You see companies investing in production capacity before the design is even finalized in order to be ‘first to market’ and to try to meet demanding timelines,” the former official said. The former official added that if vendors use “less exquisite materials” — rather than hard-to-acquire components such as metal alloys and defense-specific semiconductors — the Army may be able to acquire LCIs at speed and scale. Typically, less complicated systems don’t require such materials, and with less bespoke material, the former official said, “there is a chance to dramatically increase our capacity in the [defense industrial base].” Pettyjohn contended there will still be a need for some exquisite materials, especially for the seeker component that guides an interceptor to an incoming target, but leveraging commercial companies and practices could ease existing constraints.

Production, Demand and Safety Woes

Some parts will likely remain tricky to acquire, including solid rocket motor nozzles and rare earth minerals often sourced outside the US, Pettyjohn said. These are traditionally “two of the biggest limiting factors” on PAC-3 MSEs. But with new vendors attempting to field LCIs at scale, this bottleneck could be loosened. However, this all depends on if the vendors’ orders “are significant enough,” she said. Order volume depends on the budget, Ferrari said, which in turn will affect how quickly vendors can produce and the service can field LCIs. “You got to have a production order from the Department of Defense, and you need money, and for all the yapping everybody’s doing, they still have to go over to Congress and get the $350 billion [referring to reconciliation fiscal 2027 funds] where all the money for all this stuff is sitting,” Ferrari said. “No money, no production base, no new companies. So the trick is getting that through the process in a timely manner,” Ferrari added.

Another factor affecting the scale and speed of fielding LCIs is the test and evaluation community responsible for assessing and approving the missiles, Pettyjohn said. Last May, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth slashed the DoD’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) workforce from 126 civilians to 30 civilians and cut some of the more conservative testing procedures. “That’s a little worrying,” Pettyjohn said. “The US military has typically had a very conservative approach and wants to make sure that its weapons work and no one gets hurt, and that’s obviously something we want to continue in the future, but we can probably relax some of those requirements slightly. The question is, right now, do we have enough people to actually be doing the tests because of the workforce reductions?” The former defense official said that although VC-backed firms can sometimes finish testing quicker due to more upfront investment, he added that he’s “not sure of the technical maturity of them across the board,” meaning it may take more time than anticipated to scale LCIs, and therefore the military writ large should continue to buy more expensive systems like the PAC-3 MSE. The former official added that “the proof will be in the pudding, though, and there is definitely risk.” The former official said there should be a balance between the volume of exquisite interceptors and LCIs the Pentagon purchases, explaining that “having lots of lower cost missiles allows us to address a lot of the threats, leaving the more expensive interceptors to handle the advanced threats.” “When all you have are expensive interceptors,” he said, “we burn through them against everything and spend a lot of money in doing so.”

The Pentagon is planning to reroute roughly $4.3 billion from fiscal 2026 coffers in order to pay for “higher priority items,” including increased personnel and operational costs around the globe, the department told lawmakers in a new reprogramming notification. In a 47-page omnibus reprogramming request dated June 29, Michael Powers — the acting Pentagon comptroller and chief financial officer — outlines an array of weapon and tech programs it wants to strip dollars from to pay for “unforeseen military requirements” which are “determined to be necessary in the national interests.” A reprogramming is not a new budget request. Rather, it is asking Congress to allow the department to shift appropriated funding from one line item to a different line item — in this case, primarily towards personnel costs “required to support emergent mobilization and training requirements for critical operational missions that advance state and national priorities, and strengthen community safety, while sustaining high levels of readiness.” The document does not specifically spell out the increased operational costs associated with the ongoing war in Iran or the targeting of small boats in the Caribbean. But it does give a sense of the strain on the force from ongoing operations that weren’t planned when the FY26 budget was approved.

lol. lmao. how the fuck do you plan a trillion dollar budget and not account for supporting what isn't even that intense of a campaign? if the US actually went to China would it spend its entire allotted budget in a week or something?

Of the $4.3 billion that would be reprogrammed, $1.1 billion would go to cover Army personnel costs, while another $1.1 billion would go to the Army National Guard’s personnel coffers. For operations and maintenance support, $490 million would be added to the Guard and $36 million to the Army. In a similar vein, Navy personnel coffers are slated to receive an additional $569 million, while the Marine Corps’ personnel accounts grow by $130 million, the Air Force’s by $717 million and the Space Force’s by $92 million. Inside Defense first reported on the omnibus reprogramming. In exchange, the Pentagon is looking to cut elsewhere. The Army, for example, will shift $1.3 billion away from National Guard training and admin accounts, while also stripping $746 million away from the Army’s “operating forces” budget line due to “efficiencies in contract services and under execution in logistical support” and deferring work on construction and recapitalization projects.

The ground service’s weapon and tech coffers are also being raided, with Army missile procurement accounts taking a $235 million hit. That includes a $150 million reduction to the Stinger modification line and buying four fewer Sgt Stout Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) vehicles to free up $74 million. Over in the Navy, the Pentagon detailed a $1.4 billion shift to the service’s FY26 budget with $80 million pulled from aircraft procurement accounts. The Tagos Surtass Ships line also was hit with a $612 million degradation, while there’s a $200 million cut to the CVN-81 due to “program delays.” “Funds are available due to schedule uncertainty and late start of construction of lead T-AGOS (T-AGOS 25, a Fiscal Year 2022 ship),” the Pentagon told lawmakers. “With the integrated baseline review (IBR) and critical design review (CDR) delaying at least one quarter since the FY 2026 President’s Budget, start of construction for the lead ship (April 2027) will likely delay.” Navy research and development programs didn’t escape unscathed with $207 million being reprogrammed, while the Marine Corps missile procurement coffers also received a $187 million hit. Over in the Air Force, the notice outlines $1.5 billion in cuts with $99 million being pulled from personnel accounts, while aircraft procurement programs are reduced by $774 million to include $191 million pulled from the F-35 line. And within the Space Force, the Pentagon outlines plans to pull more than $266 million from research and development accounts and $42 million from space procurement.

A Financial Dilemma

To encourage retention, senior Navy leaders must understand the decision framework today’s strike-fighter pilots face when deciding whether to stay beyond their minimum service requirements. Historically, military pilot retention has closely followed airline hiring trends, which are tied to broader economic conditions. When airlines are hiring, Navy pilot retention declines; when hiring slows, it improves. But while in the past the Navy may have been able to weather the storm of a strong airline hiring cycle, it may now have to compete more directly and consistently with the industry than before. In the coming decade, major airlines are likely to continue hiring at rates above historical norms because of a combination of mandatory retirements and increased demand for air freight and passenger air travel. In addition, airlines have begun to actively target military aviators earlier in their careers. Programs such as the United Military Pilot Program offer conditional job offers to military pilots well in advance of when they can separate. Delta Airlines has begun extending similar offers up to a year prior to separation. Such practices were uncommon just a few years ago, but they provide increased stability to an otherwise volatile industry. As airline hiring has become more consistent and airline jobs more accessible, the gap in compensation and quality of life between military and civilian aviation has become more pronounced. Because airline seniority directly affects long-term earnings and schedule, and thus quality of life, the timing of a pilot’s transition plays a significant role in lifetime income and geographic stability. Based on current pay scales, even when accounting for Navy retention bonuses and a military pension, the opportunity cost between leaving the Navy for a major airline at approximately 12 years of service and remaining until 20 years may approach $3 million—meaning the earlier a pilot leaves the Navy the greater his or her lifetime earnings. Even relatively large military pilot retention bonuses make up just a fraction of this long-term earnings differential. Because accepting department-head orders often coincides with the decision to remain for a 20-year career, this is the decisive economic point in a pilot’s life. Deciding whether to forgo millions of dollars over the course of a career is a choice more often associated with professional athletes, but with no slowing of operational tempo in sight, Navy pilots face a stark choice: Accept DH orders and stay in the Navy at a time of increasingly long and difficult deployments, or apply for airline jobs that offer greater lifetime earnings, geographic stability, and quality of life. The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) recently completed an 11-month deployment—the longest carrier deployment since the end of the Cold War. If such deployment lengths become the norm, it will add to retention pressures. To develop effective retention policies, the Navy must understand these realities and align incentives to the options faced by mid-career aviators.

How to Fix It

Understanding that the pool of aviators may be shallower than in previous years, the Navy should adopt selective retention policies to retain the aviators it most needs to continue to serve. One way to do this is by offering targeted retention bonuses for aviators who have the greatest effect on tactical development and operational readiness—the strike-fighter tactics instructors. While current bonuses are substantial, they offer the same amount to every pilot in the community rather than prioritizing the most qualified individuals. The current maximum retention bonus for VFA pilots is $50,000 per year for up to seven years. The five-year and three-year bonuses are $50K and $40K per year, respectively.

• Bigger bonuses. Given the economic realities of the private sector—not just from the airlines—more aggressive incentives, potentially on the order of $100,000 annually, may be required to remain competitive. Retention bonuses should be scalable and tied to qualification, signaling that the service prioritizes advanced tactical expertise. While this may seem extreme, several factors make such bonuses economically sound: The cost of replacing a highly qualified aviator can exceed $10 million and require more than a decade of training and operational experience, while retaining that aviator through the department-head tour would increase the likelihood of continued service to a full 20-year career or longer.
• Higher quality service. Beyond financial incentives, the Navy must address quality-of-service factors that directly affect aviator development and retention. Unlike general infrastructure shortfalls that affect everyone in the Navy, several deficiencies specifically undermine and frustrate the tactical excellence of the strike-fighter community.

As tactics have become more complex and require higher levels of classification, insufficient IT infrastructure makes it more difficult for aircrew to train effectively and attain advanced qualifications. Reduced aircraft availability has forced some SFTIs at weapons schools to request 100-hour flight waivers, while some department heads arrive at fleet squadrons with fewer than 1,000 hours in the F/A-18—both deviations from historical norms. In 2020, the average TOPGUN applicant had approximately 725 F/A-18 flight hours. In more recent application cycles, that average had declined to 525 hours, indicating aviators are entering advanced tactical training with less operational experience. This reduction is particularly significant when viewed against established training thresholds. The governing instruction allows aviators to maintain dynamic currency with reduced flight requirements for air combat maneuvering events once they reach 750 tactical flight hours—a milestone reflecting a level of experience historically expected of more senior aviators. As average experience declines below this benchmark, aviators who previously would have been relied on for advanced tactical expertise enter these roles with less experience than their predecessors. These challenges occur against the backdrop of extended deployments and high operational tempo, with little indication of relief. Inefficiencies that increase workload across the force reduce morale and limit the time available to generate sorties and maintain readiness. While any single shortfall may seem minor, the cumulative effect over time can be significant—particularly when compared with potential adversaries using that same time to improve. To address these issues, a focused team of officers from lieutenant to captain should be formed to identify and prioritize the most impactful quality-of-service improvements, reporting directly to senior leaders to enable rapid corrective action. Ideas such a board should consider include: DH and executive officer/commanding officer bonuses that even out the airline pay differential; ways to limit the length of non-combat carrier deployments; ways to increase flight hours and aircraft readiness rates; and better active-duty/reserve integration, including options to move seamlessly between the active and reserve force.

Time to Act

Japan’s naval aviators did not lose their edge overnight. The erosion was gradual—one experienced pilot lost in combat, one training billet left unfilled, one year-group of instructors that never came home to teach. But by the time the consequences were noticeable, they were irreversible. The U.S. Navy recognized that trap in World War II and avoided it, not by chance but by deliberate policy. The Navy’s strike-fighter community faces a similar choice today, and the decisions that will determine its future health are being made now, at screening boards and airline recruitment offices, by mid-career pilots doing the math on their futures. Senior leaders have a narrow window to change the calculus. The question is not whether the Navy can afford meaningful retention bonuses and quality-of-service reform. Given what is at stake and what it costs to replace what is being lost, the question is whether it can afford not to.

Today, the Navy’s strike-fighter (VFA) community faces a significant retention challenge at a time when tactical complexity and operational demands continue to increase. Historically, naval aviation has relied on experienced department heads to carry out squadron commanders’ guidance, lead strike teams, and train and mentor junior aviators. Department heads provide tactical expertise and develop the next generation of aviators and leaders. But with fewer pilots choosing to stay in the Navy beyond their minimum service requirement, the model that has helped build and maintain U.S. power projection capability is at risk. The results of recent aviation department-head (DH) screening boards illustrate the strain on this system. In 2025, the VFA community required 52 department heads yet only 31 aviators accepted orders. Of those who accepted, 15 were transition officers from other aviation communities, including rotary wing and maritime patrol pilots. As a result, only 16 of the required 52 department head billets were filled by career VFA aviators. Because department heads make future commanding officers and key instructors within the strike-fighter community, the loss of even a small number of candidates can have cascading effects on the development and readiness of the force—including the other aviation communities from which transition officers come. The retention challenge is further compounded by a smaller-than-normal pool of qualified candidates. Delays in undergraduate flight training, particularly involving the T-45C Goshawk, resulted in fewer pilots from year groups 2014–2016 reaching the fleet. Thus, the pool of officers eligible for DH positions is correspondingly smaller than historical norms, leaving the community less capable of absorbing normal attrition, which helps explain the screening board results. Unfortunately, the challenge will only deepen as officers in year groups 2019–2021 also experienced training delays because of poor T-45C reliability.

The Threat Gets More Lethal

The loss of experienced aviators coincides with a period of increasing tactical complexity. Just 10 years ago, the primary focus in VFA air-to-air training was surviving an intercept from 10 miles out to the merge against adversary aircraft derived from Soviet Cold War designs, including MiG-29s, Su-27s, and Su-30s. Now, potential adversaries are fielding new aircraft with advanced missiles and sensors designed to challenge U.S. tactical air superiority. Despite historical reliance on Soviet/Russian aerospace technology, in the past decade China has developed advanced indigenous platforms, including the fourth-generation J-16 and fifth-generation J-20A and J-35, and it is reportedly developing sixth-generation aircraft. Chinese missile technology has mirrored these advances. Open-source reporting from the 2025 India-Pakistan conflict suggests long-range air-to-air engagements at distances approaching 100 nautical miles—among the longest ever reported in combat. As engagement ranges and threat capabilities increase, U.S. tactics have grown correspondingly more complex to maintain lethality and survivability. Developing, testing, and refining these tactics has increasingly fallen to a cadre of experienced aviators who translate emerging technologies into tactics and provide the resulting practical instruction for the fleet. Retaining these aviators is therefore not simply a matter of manning fleet squadrons but of building, honing, and preserving their tactical expertise and combat edge.

Strike-Fighter Tactics Instructors

Within the VFA community, this process is formalized through the strike-fighter tactics instructor (SFTI) program, which develops the instructors who teach and disseminate advanced aerial tactics while training, evaluating, and leading the fleet. The origins of this model date back to the Vietnam War. In 1969, faced with formidable North Vietnamese aircraft and air-defense systems and an unacceptable kill-to-loss ratio, the Navy created the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN) to regain its tactical edge. Newly minted graduates returned to fleet squadrons and taught their squadron mates what they had learned in training. The combat results were immediately positive and decisive; graduates from the first TOPGUN class achieved an aerial victory against a MiG-21 on 28 March 1970—the first of many in the skies over Vietnam. This “train-the-trainer” model has demonstrated that a small cadre of instructors can have an outsized effect on the combat effectiveness of the fleet. Yet the number of SFTIs produced each year is limited, with only a few dozen VFA pilots graduating from TOPGUN annually. Developing these instructors requires a significant investment of time and resources. Based on the flights and simulator hours required during the TOPGUN course alone, the training cost for an individual student may range between $1 million and $2 million, not including the additional investment required to develop graduates into TOPGUN instructors. After completing advanced tactical training, these aviators refine their instructional skills during shore tours before returning to fleet squadrons as training officers. This natural progression creates distributed “knowledge nodes”—such as Strike-Fighter Weapons School Atlantic at Naval Air Station Oceana and Strike-Fighter Weapons School Pacific at NAS Lemoore. These schools and their instructor cadre sustain tactical development within the VFA community while also providing a steady pipeline of experienced aviation leaders. In total, the Navy’s investment in a single SFTI represents more than a decade of training and operational experience and more than $10 million in cumulative investment. Retaining these instructors is far more cost-effective than replacing them. Just as this small cadre of instructors provides an outsized tactical advantage to the fleet, their departure from the service removes critical knowledge from the VFA community. In recent screening boards, nearly half the department heads who accepted orders were transition aviators, underscoring the degree to which the community has relied on this approach to maintain manning. With only 22 strike-fighter squadrons, nearly every one will have a transition department head. While these officers bring operational experience from other platforms, they must master strike-fighter tactics while assuming demanding leadership roles. As threats and tactics continue to evolve, tactical proficiency requires sustained immersion in the operational environment. Even highly experienced aviators can find themselves behind the learning curve after relatively short periods away from the cockpit.

A Cautionary Tale

In 1941, Japan fielded some of the most highly selected and rigorously trained naval aviators in the world. Many Japanese carrier pilots entered combat with hundreds of flight hours while flying some of the most capable aircraft of the era. By 1944, however, that standard had deteriorated dramatically. Many new Japanese pilots entered combat with only about 40 hours of flight training. This decline was not primarily caused by a shortage of aircraft or industrial capacity, but by Japan’s decision not to preserve and rotate experienced aviators back to training commands to prepare the next generation of pilots. Instead, many of Japan’s most capable pilots remained in operational units until lost in combat. The U.S. Navy adopted a different approach during the war. Naval leaders recognized that producing large numbers of aircraft would be insufficient without skilled aviators to fly them. So, even at the height of the global conflict, veteran combat aviators were regularly rotated back to training commands, where they passed their experience to new pilots entering the fleet. By preserving these experienced instructors, the Navy ensured tactical knowledge gained in combat was incorporated into training and disseminated across the force. Because Japan’s experienced pilots never rotated back to training squadrons, the system that had produced the country’s early-war victories rapidly weakened. The battle-hardened Japanese naval aviators who fought at Midway in June of 1942 were gradually replaced by far less experienced aviators, leading to the “Marianas Turkey Shoot” in the June 1944 Battle of the Philippine Sea. This lesson from World War II is clear: preserving experienced instructors—and the tactical knowledge they carry—is essential to maintaining combat effectiveness. The strike-fighter community must confront a similar challenge today.

The U.S. Navy’s Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has been underway for 210 straight days – well over half a year – in support of Operation Epic Fury and the subsequent blockade of Iran. This looks to be a record-setting milestone. Lincoln, the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 3 (CSG-3), is currently operating in Middle Eastern waters. Abraham Lincoln, the fifth Nimitz class supercarrier and self-styled “most capable CSG in the fleet,” departed Naval Base Guam on December 12, 2025, after a quick one-day port call. Port calls, or temporary visits to friendly countries, allow the crew to disembark for “liberty” – to step on solid ground – and break up the grueling, nonstop schedule experienced during deployments. However, the stop in Guam, a strategic U.S. territory in the Western Pacific, was so brief that much of the crew likely never went ashore. Lincoln and CSG-3, made up of more than 5,000 Sailors and Marines, quietly left Naval Base San Diego three weeks earlier on November 21, 2025. At the time, the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean was the focus of public attention, and Lincoln was expected to conduct a routine Pacific patrol. An Iran contingency was on the table following Operation Midnight Hammer, when B-2 bombers struck nuclear targets deep inside Iran, and Lincoln’s Composite Training Unit Exercise (COMPTUEX) included preparing for a fight in the Middle East. COMPTUEXs are weeks-long capstone training events for carrier strike groups that come right before they deploy. After leaving Guam, Lincoln conducted operations in the South China Sea before entering the Indian Ocean and arriving in the northern Arabian Sea in late January. Aircraft from Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 9 launched sorties in the opening salvo of Operation Epic Fury, and the CSG was instrumental in enforcing the naval blockade that followed. Since the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed on June 17, Lincoln has remained in the northern Arabian Sea, launching retaliatory strikes during the recent skirmishes.

The CSG has been deployed for more than seven months now and would likely be among the first naval assets to rotate out of the theater if an agreement is reached between the U.S. and Iran. The details and scale of the drawdown of forces in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) AOR, as per the MOU agreed to by American and Iranian officials last month, are to be determined within 30 days if a final deal is reached before the deadline in mid-August. A new spate of tit-for-tat strikes just this week has created serious uncertainty around future talks between Washington and Tehran. More than 20 U.S. Navy surface combatants are still operating in the region. “We’ve officially claimed the title for most consecutive days at sea for any modern aircraft carrier,” Lt. Commander Alexis Travis, an officer currently serving aboard Lincoln, wrote on Instagram on June 16. We have reached out to the Navy to confirm whether this is indeed a record-breaking period at sea. However, we have not received a response as of the time of publication. In June 2020, the U.S. Navy did announce that the Nimitz class carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Ticonderoga class cruiser USS San Jacinto had set a new record after spending 161 days consecutively operating at sea. Eisenhower did not make a stop in port until the next month, having been at sea for 206 consecutive days in the end. This was, in part, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when port access was severely limited due to quarantine restrictions. The carrier had left Norfolk in January 2020 for a deployment to the Middle East and launched combat sorties during Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan, returning home nearly seven months later without a single stop. Prior to that, USS Theodore Roosevelt held the record in 2002, supporting the post-9/11 response. Roosevelt left Norfolk in September 2001 to participate in Operation Enduring Freedom and spent 160 days at sea before anchoring in Bahrain for a reprieve in February the following year.

In April, USS Gerald R. Ford, the newest American carrier and largest in the world, logged the longest deployment on record at 326 days. Ford, while deployed for nearly eleven months, was operating primarily in the U.S. European Command-6th Fleet area of responsibility (AOR) and U.S. Southern Command-4th Fleet AOR, which is relatively friendly territory, and made at least nine port calls in Marseille, Oslo, Palma de Mallorca, Split, St. Thomas Island, and Souda Bay. Between port calls and stops to refuel and make emergent repairs, Ford averaged a visit to port every 36 days. The Lincoln CSG, which also includes guided-missile destroyers from Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 21, served as the tip of the spear in Operation Epic Fury. DESRON 21 fired dozens of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) against Iran, and provided defensive measures for the CSG, using Standard Missiles and other armaments to intercept incoming threats. The embarked “air wing of the future,” CVW 9, launched thousands of sorties and pressured Iran’s southern axis during the 40-day war, successfully escorted commercial ships through the contested Strait of Hormuz, and hunted and disabled Iranian-affiliated vessels attempting to run the blockade. The carrier’s air wing notably includes F-35C Joint Strike Fighters assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314 (VMFA 314), giving it better penetrating capabilities. The CSG has proven its ability to blend and interoperate high, medium, and low-end naval and joint capabilities, for offensive and defensive purposes, as well as integrate across platforms, including manned and unmanned systems, conventional and unconventional, surface and subsurface, overt and covert, and more, during nonstop combat operations. The destroyers escorting Lincoln were able to make port calls before the war began, but some have been at sea for over four months. USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., the Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) Commander, moored at Navy Terminal in the Port of Duqm, Oman, for two days in mid-February. USS Michael Murphy, the last destroyer to leave the Persian Gulf before the first shots were fired, docked in Dubai, UAE, from February 25-27, and left the day before the city was targeted in the initial waves of Iran’s counterattack. Satellite imagery reviewed by TWZ at the time showed Murphy’s precise location the day prior was targeted. USS Spruance, the only San Diego-based destroyer operating with CSG-3, deployed on the same day as Lincoln, and has been at sea for just as long, with one port call in December in Guam. Spruance was spotted firing a black TLAM on the first day of Epic Fury.

“Literally no one signed up for this,” Lt. Commander Travis also wrote on Instagram. “And yet here we are, still doing it safely and successfully. Just a strong group doing tough stuff, breaking records and then waking up and doing it again.” When the crew serving tirelessly aboard Lincoln will next set foot on land is unknown, and with the fate of the U.S.-Iran MOU similarly uncertain, it may be some time.