{"id":14899,"date":"2021-02-26T23:06:47","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T23:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smg.go-vip.net\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/02\/26\/after-historically-long-deployment-nimitz-is-almost-home\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:07:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:07:41","slug":"after-historically-long-deployment-nimitz-is-almost-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2021\/02\/26\/after-historically-long-deployment-nimitz-is-almost-home\/","title":{"rendered":"After historically long deployment, Nimitz is almost home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After heading over the horizon last April, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to upend life across America, the aircraft carrier Nimitz<\/a> and its strike group are heading home, completing the Navy\u2019s longest deployment since the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The carrier arrived in San Diego Friday to drop off Carrier Air Wing 17, its crew and any other sailors who call San Diego home and will then steam up to its home port at Bremerton, Washington, in the coming days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strike group\u2019s sailors will have been gone for roughly 340 days \u2014 11 months \u2014 by the time everyone is back home from the historic deployment, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday told reporters earlier this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheir focus on mission really got them through a long deployment, the longest we\u2019ve seen in decades,\u201d Gilday said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joining Nimitz on this cruise was the guided-missile cruiser Princeton and the guided-missile destroyer Sterett.<\/p>\n\n\n\t