The USS Abraham Lincoln will not return to Everett next month as originally planned, but the Navy isnt saying just yet when the aircraft carrier will return to its homeport.
The warship, a Nimitz-class carrier with a crew of more than 5,000, left Everett in October, along with the destroyer USS Shoup, for a four-month deployment. Since the beginning of the month, however, the Lincoln and the ships in its strike group have been in the Indian Ocean near Sumatra, Indonesia, to assist with the tsunami disaster-relief effort.
“The Abraham Lincoln has, indeed, been extended on deployment, and it would be inappropriate to speculate on the ship’s return, Navy Cmdr. John Bernard, the spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces in Indonesia, said in an email to The Herald.
The Navy understands sailors and their families’ desires to be reunited and is working toward that end, Bernard added. However, the people of Indonesia have suffered an unprecedented disaster and are counting on the sailors of the Abraham Lincoln for their very survival.
Its the second deployment in a row for the Lincoln where the carrier hasnt returned as planned. When the Lincoln deployed in July 2002 for the war in Afghanistan, the carrier was on its way home when it was ordered to turn around so it could play a vital role in the war in Iraq.
The Lincoln was kept at sea for a record 290 days, the longest deployment for a carrier since 1973.
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