The ship, CVN-78, with over 4,500 sailors and aviators has been at sea for 10 months from the Caribbean to the Middle East at the orders of Defense Sec. Hegseths’ actions….
They have told to expect to maybe get off the ship in May….
Months longer than the regular 6 month deployments….
Reports are that it took over 30 hours to contain and extinguish the fire that broke out on the huge ship….
The ship will be heading to Crete for major fire damage repairs, it has a had other issues….
The ship, along with its 4,500 sailors and fighter pilots, was in the Mediterranean on Oct. 24 when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered it to steam to the Caribbean to add weight to President Trump’s pressure campaign on Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s leader before his seizure.
From the Caribbean, the carrier rushed to the Middle East for the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, which is now in its third week.
Speaking to sailors on board aircraft carriers is difficult in the best of circumstances. During a war, the ships and military bases involved in operations go “dark,” limiting the ability of service members to communicate with the outside world. The officials and sailors interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The Ford is now entering its 10th month of deployment. It will break the record for longest post-Vietnam War carrier deployment if it is still at sea in mid-April. That record, at 294 days, was set by the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in 2020.
Crew members on the Ford have been told that their deployment will probably be extended into May, which would put them at an entire year at sea, twice the length of a normal aircraft carrier deployment.
image….The world’s largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford seen in the North Sea on Sept. 24, 2025.
Jonathan Klein/AFP via Getty
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