The long-deployed USS Lincoln returns home to San Diego Bay

Sailors wave aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier as it returns to Naval Air Station North Island after deployment Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Coronado, Calif. Gregory Bull/AP hide caption

CORONADO, Calif. — After more than 10 months at sea, thousands of sailors Thursday poured out of the the USS Lincoln on San Diego Bay to thunderous cheers, streaming tears and emotional hugs, marking a homecoming that included new dads who met babies born while they were away on a historic deployment supporting the Iran war.

Abel Ramirez, 20, was glad to have that all behind him. He walked off the carrier with a big grin, overjoyed that his first deployment was over.

"It feels amazing," he said while headed out to search for his parents who traveled from Texas. "There was a certain point when I never thought I would come off."

Cassity Garduque, 14, waved as her mom in her sailor uniform frantically waved back from the top deck after the ship docked at the pier.

"It feels really overwhelming," she said about being seeing her mom again. "She missed most of my seventh grade and my birthday."

She added that she's happy her mom won't be eating ramen almost every day and can celebrate with her now.

Family and friends cheer as the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier returns to Naval Air Station North Island after deployment Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Coronado, Calif. Gregory Bull/AP hide caption

Capt. Daniel Keeler, the ship's commander, said most of the crew was on their first deployment and that the issues they faced were normal for such a long deployment, adding everyone had access to four meals a day.

"It's a floating city as you can see and at any moment there might be a clogged toilet," he said.

The Navy initially downplayed any problems during the deployment, and President Donald Trump commented in August that the Lincoln's lengthy deployment was "not nearly long enough."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flew out to the Lincoln on Wednesday to give the crew the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest honor a unit can receive.

Hegseth told the crew 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 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."