To have a chance at joining Delta Force, the U.S. military’s most elite special operations unit, tryouts must first complete approximately three weeks of increasingly arduous marches while carrying increasing weight loads. This test phase of the selection course ends with a roughly 40-mile march known in the military as “The Long Walk.” Few are able to meet the watch in completing this arduous test.
The crew of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier will soon complete their own ‘long sail’ version of the long walk.
When the crew steps foot back in Norfolk, Virginia, in May, they will have spent more than 300 days or 11 months on operations. The carrier strike group’s escorts have been rotated over this long stint away from home, but not so the Ford’s crew. Indeed, as the U.S. Naval Institute notes, this will be the longest carrier deployment since the end of the Cold War. Most carrier deployments last 7 to 9 months.
Yes, numerous U.S. Army units spent up to 15 months deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq during those wars. Still, 11 months at sea is no easy task. Think about more than 4,500 people stuck in a floating metal apartment building. It is crowded, it is stressful, and there are no days off. Crew members work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. Where crewmembers mess up or slack off, their colleagues must do extra work. Where they really mess up, people and equipment might be lost forever.
Making matters tougher, the Ford has been on especially stressful combat duty for much of its tour.
First, the Ford was off the coast of Venezuela, preparing for the eventual Delta Force operation to seize dictator Nicolas Maduro. Since Feb. 20, the crew has been involved in operations against Iran. They’ve had to keep the carrier’s air wing flying so that its combat missions can be accomplished. The durable intensity of this deployment will have seen marriages fail, relationships end (and, contrary to Navy regulations, begin), friendships made and lost, and fights and fires break out.
Indeed, a March fire in one of the carrier’s laundry areas led to two separate port calls for repairs. Still, these calls were short and plainly designed to minimize repair timelines rather than provide shore leave for the crews. The Navy wanted this carrier back at sea and back on operations as soon as possible.
A deployment of this length carries a cost not simply to the well-being of crews and their families back home, but to the ship itself. Wear and tear become a major problem. It means things breaking down more often and more seriously. The Ford’s extended deployment has meant rescheduling maintenance and other operations in Norfolk. Readying the Ford for its next deployment will almost certainly take longer than it would have if the ship returned home on a standard timeline.
And while the Navy exists to fulfill the lawful orders of the commander in chief, President Donald Trump, this deployment underscores the broad near- to medium-term costs to readiness that the Iran war has predictably created for China-related contingencies. Just as this war’s depletion of key munitions reduces the U.S. military’s probability of victory in any China war, keeping crews and ships at sea for such a long time does the same.
AMERICA’S NATO AND ISRAELI ALLIANCES ARE IMPERFECT BUT IMPORTANT
Still, Americans should be proud of what this crew continues to accomplish. They have chosen to live a life of service in the nation’s interest.
The Ford’s complement and carrier air wing are not yet home. But when they are, they’ll deserve our gratitude (and our round of beers).