After a grueling nine-month deployment plagued by deteriorating conditions, health and morale, the USS Abraham Lincoln is finally heading home. 

The Lincoln is on its way back to San Diego, a U.S. official told MS NOW on Thursday. U.S. Central Command said Thursday that the USS George Washington, an aircraft carrier based in Japan, arrived in the Middle East on Wednesday. Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, announced in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday that he had personally told service members aboard the ship they were “going home.”

Relief for the nearly 5,000 sailors and Marines on board the Lincoln comes after MS NOW spoke to a dozen family members who expressed concerns for their loved ones’ health and safety as they described inadequate living conditions on the ship, including a shortage of food and basic necessities such as toothpaste, deodorant and soap. 

Some of those family members confronted Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao and other Navy leaders in back-to-back in-person and virtual town halls on Aug. 6. They expressed concerns about mental health and exhaustion, which they worried could lead to dangerous accidents. 

MS NOW’s reporting prompted lawmakers to demand answers from the Pentagon about why the Lincoln’s deployment had been extended for at least three months and when it would be relieved. 

Initially, Navy leaders said during the Aug. 6 in-person town hall that the USS Theodore Roosevelt, based in San Diego, would relieve the Lincoln. When asked why the USS Washington, whose home port is closer, could not be deployed to relieve the Lincoln, Cao, the acting Navy secretary, told families that the Navy needed to maintain a presence in the South Pacific, where it had operational commitments, according to four people who attended the meeting and were granted anonymity by MS NOW to describe the closed-door discussion.

On Aug. 14, Cao announced that the Lincoln would return home following mounting public pressure to relieve the beleaguered carrier and its crew, but made no mention of three guided-missile destroyers  deployed alongside the Lincoln as part of its strike group. It is unclear if any of those destroyers are headed home with the Lincoln.

The Lincoln left San Diego on Nov. 21 and was supposed to return home in May. It set a modern-era record for most continuous days at sea after only having two port calls for the entire deployment.

If the Lincoln plans to head directly to San Diego, making no port calls on its journey home, it would arrive within three weeks of its departure.

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From MS Now.