“Welcome home” signs and American flags lined Shelter Island Thursday as onlookers eagerly awaited the USS Abraham Lincoln’s return to San Diego.
The USS Lincoln cruised through San Diego Bay at 11:15 a.m. after a record deployment of 265 uninterrupted days at sea in support of the Iran war. As the mission wore on, reports surfaced of deteriorating conditions among its crew, including mental health challenges and suicide attempts.
“They’ve had quite a tour, and deserve this welcome home,” Martha Clark, a San Diego resident since the 1980s, told Times of San Diego while waiting to wave at the aircraft carrier from the Shelter Island boat launch.
Supporters, both those there simply to welcome the USS Lincoln and anti-war protesters, lined the parkland off Shelter Island Drive to watch the carrier cruise to North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, its home port.
“Welcome home. You deserve better,” read a sign held up by protesters as the ship passed between North Island and the tip of Point Loma.
Eager families
Dozens of sailors stood atop the carrier as it glided past downtown San Diego and neared the dock where cheering families waited, carrying flowers and balloons and ringing cowbells.
Among the first to depart once the ship docks will be 64 fathers meeting theirs babies for the first time, the Navy said. Families and loved ones of the crew began to wait in line hours ahead of the carrier’s arrival to gain access to the base in Coronado.
Waiting for her husban,k Kathy Monterrosa held her six-month-old daughter, Sarahi, outfitted in a tiny blue and white sailor dress.
“She’s our deployment baby,” said Monterrosa, of Virginia Beach, Virginia.
“We are different people now; we are parents now,” she said. “We definitely matured from the last time we saw each other.”
Alma Solano Velez said her husband gave his family an extensive list of the foods he has been craving over the past 10 months: oxtail, barbecue chicken, broccoli and shrimp empanadas to name a few.
He had told his wife about “the lack of food and showers” on board and was looking forward to seeing their daughter, who turned 4 while he was away, she said.
The carrier drew national attention following reports of stress among crew members, as well as supply shortages, including food and hygiene products, during its Iran war mission.
The Navy initially downplayed any problems, and President Donald Trump commented in August that the Lincoln’s lengthy deployment was “not nearly long enough.”
The carrier left San Diego in November and arrived in the Middle East in January. U.S. and Israeli forces launched airstrikes against Iran on Feb. 28.
Navy leaders eventually acknowledged there were some issues aboard.
In August, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said the Lincoln maintained adequate food supplies, but because combat operations limited resupply opportunities, meal options were reduced from two to one for a short time. He said in a letter to a Democratic lawmaker seeking information that four nutritionally balanced meals were served daily.
After more than 10 months at sea, the Lincoln’s crew finally had a rest stop in Thailand early last month on the way back from the Middle East.
Honor for crew
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flew out to the carrier on Wednesday to give the crew the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest honor a unit can receive, typically reserved for significant achievement in combat.
According to the citation that Hegseth read to the crew, the Lincoln and its strike group executed 3,693 combat missions, delivered 1.37 million pounds of ordnance, launched 450 Tomahawk cruise missiles, shot down 77 one-way attack drones, sank 64 Iranian warships, destroyed 21 anti-ship cruise missiles and defended against four fast-attack craft and explosive-carrying ships.
Hegseth pushed back against what he said were efforts to turn the “Lincoln into some sort of a symbol, a symbol of dysfunction or a symbol of low morale or a symbol of a failed mission.”
He said that “what makes the U.S. military and the U.S. 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 Trump “tracked your activities from day one and couldn’t be more proud of what you executed.”
Another carrier, the USS George Washington, usually Asia-based, relieved the Lincoln in the Middle East in August.
Derek Copenhaven, a Navy corpsman for 13 years, was one of the protesters present at Shelter Island for the carrier’s return. Speaking at an anti-war press conference while waiting for USS Lincoln’s arrival, he referred to comments by Trump that many interpreted to mean it would be “a very small price to pay” if San Diego and Los Angeles were targeted in war.
“The ship is coming in today,” Copenhaven said. “Does he not care about the people on those ships?”
“We’re all here to celebrate the return of the USS Lincoln, but we must not forget what they’ve endured. Ten months is a long time to be deployed, away from your family. That ship has 5,000 people on it, and they’re all going through their own problems.”
The USS Lincoln, which set a record for days in between ports of call, is the second carrier to endure an unusually long deployment to support the war against Iran, and to receive the presidential citation.
Hegseth in May met the crew of the USS Gerald R. Ford during its return from a 326-day deployment — the longest for an aircraft carrier in the past 50 years and a record in the post-Vietnam War era.
The USS Ford deployment, though, didn’t include as many uninterrupted days at sea as the Lincoln’s 265-day stretch.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Updated 1:30 p.m. Oct. 8, 2026
