Tuesday’s departure of the USS Abraham Lincoln from Naval Station Everett felt a bit more somber than usual. This deployment, which will last into next year, could be the aircraft carrier’s final extended one before it leaves for Virginia to undergo the mid-life refueling of its nuclear reactors, roughly a three-year process.
The Navy has yet to say whether the Lincoln will return after that, or whether another carrier will be assigned to Everett in the interim.
So as Naval Station Everett’s iconic centerpiece heads across the Pacific — accompanied by two Everett-based guided missile destroyers, the USS Momsen and USS Shoup — it leaves uncertainty in its wake. That’s an unfamiliar feeling to a community that began embracing the Navy, its personnel and their families even before the base opened in 1994.
This has been a carrier homeport from its beginning. A carrier homeport it should remain.
Naval Station Everett is known as “The Sailor’s Choice” for good reason. The monicker is based on a mutual love affair, one fueled by the community’s enthusiastic support for the Navy and its families, and their reciprocal commitment as active citizens and volunteers.
It’s a relationship neither the region nor the Navy should take for granted. Sailors and other Navy personnel are quick to note how welcome they feel here, and how it makes a tangible difference for their families. And clearly, as Snohomish County’s second-largest employer, the Navy’s economic impact is welcome, too.
The Pentagon’s financial investment here is substantial. Naval Station Everett is a growing base, and one of the military’s most modern. Its location on a natural deepwater port, with quick and easy access to the Pacific, makes it one of the Navy’s most strategically significant installations — especially since some of the United States’ biggest strategic challenges and diplomatic opportunities lie in the Pacific region.
For all these reasons, it’s essential that Navy officials fill the Lincoln’s impending absence with another carrier. Long-term, there’s even room and support for a second, as Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson has reminded Navy officials repeatedly.
The local economy obviously depends on the base’s current number of sailors, but community pride and prestige are also real considerations. The iconic nature of an aircraft carrier gives it a marketable quality that can’t be replaced by any number of smaller ships.
Everett and the Lincoln have become almost synonymous. The city is a carrier homeport, in many ways the best in the Navy. It should remain that way, for years to come.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
