USS Lincoln returns to San Diego after record 265-day deployment

Hegseth awards Presidential Unit Citation, plays down conditions reports

The USS Abraham Lincoln is set to return to its home port in San Diego on October 8, 2026, concluding 265 uninterrupted days at sea — a record deployment that supported US operations in the Iran war, The Guardian reported.

The carrier, with roughly 5,000 sailors and marines onboard, left San Diego in November 2025, initially bound for the Pacific and expected to return in the spring. After the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February, the Lincoln was redirected to the Middle East to support US operations in the region.

Throughout the deployment, reports emerged of supply shortages and deteriorating mental health aboard the vessel. Families and veterans warned that the length and intensity of the deployment were taking a toll on those serving and their loved ones, The Guardian reported. The carrier became a flashpoint in the debate over the war and, for some, a symbol of the strains the conflict has placed on the US military and the people serving in it.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flew to the carrier on Wednesday to present the crew with the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest honor a unit can receive, typically reserved for significant achievement in combat. Hegseth praised the crew’s adaptability, telling them that “what makes the US military and the US Navy and all these sailors different is that you adapt and that you’re resilient and you overcome — you finish the mission nonetheless.”

Hegseth told the crew that President Donald Trump “tracked your activities from day one and couldn’t be more proud of what you executed.”

In remarks before the carrier’s return, Hegseth sought to play down accounts of poor conditions, condemning “a few folks in the media” whom he accused of trying to “turn” the Lincoln’s deployment “into some sort of symbol of dysfunction, or a symbol of low morale or a symbol of a failed mission.”

The Guardian also reported other political developments on October 8.

In remarks in San Antonio, Texas, Trump tried to channel the anti-Muslim racism that helped get him elected in 2016, The Guardian reported, skipping from a dire warning that Iran would use a nuclear weapon if it had one to what The Guardian described as the “wild, false” claim that former President Barack Obama could have stopped the Fort Hood gunman, Nidal Hasan, but chose not to. Trump repeated his false claim that the war with Iran, which he started in February, was necessary to prevent Iran from destroying American cities like Los Angeles or San Diego in a nuclear attack. US intelligence agencies assessed in 2025 that Iran had abandoned its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003, The Guardian reported. Trump’s midterm rally speech was disrupted by protesters up to a dozen times.

Separately, the Democratic National Committee sued the Trump administration in federal court, asking a judge in Washington to stop the president from using taxpayer funds to air a series of ads promoting himself, arguing the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda.