It will be a few years before deployment lengths drop from 10 to 11 months to the normal seven months, the Navy’s top enlisted sailor said Wednesday.
As Sailors deploy with carrier strike groups, they are told to expect a deployment that lasts between 10 and 11 months, MCPON John Perryman said during a speech at the Navy Memorial.
Longer extensions began in 2023 with the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group which was deployed for nine months following the Houthis’ Red Sea campaign. When the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran in late February, the operations began a cycle of deployments that lasted 11 months.
The Gerald R. Ford CSG spent 326 days at sea, including time in the Middle East – the third longest deployment since 1972. The Abraham Lincoln CSG, which returned home Oct. 8, spent 321 days at sea, most of which was in the Middle East. The Abraham Lincoln CSG deployment was the fourth longest deployment since 1972, and it also broke the record for longest days at sea.
Now the Navy is telling its sailors to expect longer deployments with the goal of sending them out with realistic expectations for deployment length, Perryman said.
“Nobody wants an 11-month deployment. Everyone understands that,” Perryman said. “But what they really don’t like is being told it’s seven months and then they get a change every two weeks. It’s the uncertainty. They can’t plan for that.”
The Navy also doesn’t want long deployments, Perryman said. Longer deployments often mean longer maintenance, which disrupts the Navy’s availability cycles.
Sailors will serve longer deployments, as long as there is a port call, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said Tuesday during a briefing at the Navy Memorial. USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) spent 265 days at sea, the longest period a Navy ship has gone without visiting a port.
“They have to get on their knees, and if you’re going to keep them at sea for seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 months, then they have to be able to get on their knees,” Caudle said. “And the port call doesn’t have to be so glamorous, but it has to be able to stop, let them call home, let them get back to dry land, and just freshen up a little bit, get going again and get back into the fight.”
When extensions come in from the Pentagon, the Navy submits a memo explaining why it doesn’t think a longer deployment would be a good thing, Perryman said.
“The decision to extend the life of our ships is a Navy decision,” he said. “The president has a different calculus than we do, and so (the Pentagon makes) the decisions it needs to make, and then we support those decisions.”
Caudle is working with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine to determine what the schedules will look like to provide more certainty for Sailors, he said.
“You can kind of expect at least a 10-month deployment, and so that’s exactly the nature of what the Navy can do,” Caudle said. “I need a bigger Navy, and if you want to reduce the length of deployments, then obviously the math would say I need more capacity. »
Ships that are currently deployed are heading to the Middle East with more supplies, Perryman said, following problems experienced by the Abraham Lincoln CSG following damage to the Bahrain naval base.
The Sea Service is also adjusting to the other side of deployment, when Sailors who have been at sea for 10 or 11 months are now back home, Perryman said. It can be a difficult time for Sailors who have gone from a set schedule and mission to more fluidity upon arriving home, Matthew Brown, co-founder of Chimney Trail, which provides training for Sailors using cognitive behavioral therapy, told USNI News earlier this month when Abe CSG returned home to San Diego.
Losing freedom of action can pose a challenge to a Sailor’s mental health, Brown said. He flew towards Abé to speak with the sailors as the ship returned to San Diego.
Fleet and Family Services also offers a handful of programs for Sailors returning from deployments, Brown said.
After longer deployments to the Red Sea, the Navy adjusted its programs to interact with returning Sailors, including identifying a Sailor’s risk level, Perryman said.
Checkpoints are set up every 30 days depending on the level of risk, he explained.
On the other hand, longer deployments see sailors facing re-enlistment re-enlist, Perryman said. Sailors on board Abé who had the choice to reenlist, 74 percent did so.
It is unclear how many sailors were ready to be re-enlisted during the deployment.
AbéUSS George Washington (CVN-73) and USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) have the highest ship retention, Caudle said. The Navy also added 46,000 active-duty sailors in fiscal 2026, he said.
“They sign up to play a combat duty role, and that’s what they have the opportunity to do,” Caudle said.
Abé is now preparing to head to the shipyard, where the Navy is experiencing its worst retention rates, Perryman said.
“Sailors hate being in the shipyard,” he said.
The Navy is working to create more housing to improve the quality of life for young sailors whose ships are at the shipyard. There are about 1,000 sailors still living on ships, up from 7,000, Caudle said.
The Navy and the Pentagon closed a $1.7 billion deal with Hunt Military Communities to bring more beds to the Hampton Roads region, one of the highest fleet concentration areas with no housing available for young sailors.
Additionally, 90 percent of Navy barracks have Wi-Fi, with the remaining 10 percent in more remote areas, like Diego Garcia, Caudle said. Other pilot programs, executed Commander, Navy Installations Commandare working to provide better food options for sailors.
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