The USS Abraham Lincoln is Finally Home

321 days.

That’s how long the USS Abraham Lincoln and its thousands of servicemembers have been away from their families and their home port of San Diego.

And today, for the first time in 10 months, they return home. They hug loved ones. They sleep out of harm’s way.

In the time these men and women were deployed as the tip of the spear in the Iran war, they worked tirelessly. And that service took a heavy toll – a price we have come to know through harrowing stories shared by family members and even the military’s own leadership. The crew of the Abraham Lincoln has faced long and grueling shifts, diminished supplies and even mental health crises. Those burdens of such a long deployment have been shouldered by the crew and their families back in San Diego.

As we welcome them home today, and we hear more of those stories of hardship and sacrifice, I hope these heavy burdens resonate through the halls of the White House and the Pentagon. With no clear objective and no measurable progress, this war must end. Not just for the sake of the higher costs this war has imposed on the American people, but for the sake of those servicemembers who have paid an even higher price. Those who have been asked to miss holidays, birthdays, births and weddings for nearly a year in order to sustain this war of choice.

Only last week, the USS Theodore Roosevelt and its carrier strike group left San Diego. All signs point to its crew being relief for a beleaguered force still deployed in the Middle East. I hope for the sake of our sailors, Marines, soldiers, guardians and airmen that this new deployment of Californians does not repeat the hardships of the Abraham Lincoln.⁩⁩