The USS Carl Vinson changed command a week after leaving on its latest deployment.
Capt. Karl O. Thomas took over as commanding officer of the aircraft carrier for Capt. Kent D. Whalen during a ceremony Monday at sea near Hawaii.
Before giving way to Thomas, Whalen thanked each of the ship’s “Gold Eagle Warriors” for their adherence to the Navy’s mission.
“Trying to get nearly 2,800 people moving toward the same goal is a leadership challenge,” Whalen said, in a Navy news release. “I certainly would not have been able to accomplish that without being blessed with a tremendous team of sailors.”
Rear Adm. Christopher Grady, commander of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group, honored Whalen with the Legion of Merit for his “exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer.”
Whalen oversaw a Western Pacific and Middle East deployment of the carrier during his watch. According to the Navy, the ship earned a 98 percent assessment rating before deploying.
The Navy also compiled some stats to reflect what the carrier’s crew accomplished during his command:
- They steamed over 120,000 nautical miles and operated in three different fleet areas of responsibility.
- There were 4,000 fixed-wing launches and recoveries and 38 replenishments-at-sea, and
- Weapons and ammunition onloads exceeded 2 million pounds.
Whalen will become a rear admiral and is set to join the Joint Allied Forces Command in Naples, Italy.
After the Navy’s orders were read during the ceremony, Thomas assumed command.
“It is a great honor to be here, deployed for the fourth time in my career aboard ‘America’s Favorite Carrier’,” Thomas said. “This crew has been training for over the past year and I look forward to seeing that hard work pay off in the near future.”
Thomas also has served as commanding officer aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
