The guided-missile-destroyer Pinckney returned home to San Diego Monday after a nine-month deployment, the last six months of which were spent without any port call.
Pinckney deployed with the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and the rest of its strike group in January.
But when TR was sidelined to Guam this spring after a COVID-19 outbreak that infected roughly a quarter of the crew, the destroyer headed to the waters of U.S. Southern Command for “enhanced counter-narcotics operations” in the eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, the Navy said in a statement announcing Pinckney’s homecoming.
“A lengthy deployment is always challenging, even more so in the midst of a global pandemic that kept us all on the ship for the past six months,” Pinckney’s executive officer, Cmdr. Ryan Conole, said. “Our team was able to stay focused and on mission, and we could not have done that without the support of our families and friends back home who were also dealing with an incredibly challenging environment on the home front.”
The crew of the Pinckney is the latest group of sailors to grapple with long deployments this year.
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The warship Stout reached a record 208 days at sea on Sept. 26 as part of its deployment to the U.S. 5th Fleet.
Less than two months earlier, the sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower and the cruiser San Jacinto broke the prior record for most consecutive days at sea.
Ike is now getting ready for another deployment early next year after roughly six months home.
The TR community has also been told to prepare for its own so-called “double pump” —two deployments in the same 36-month readiness cycle — in the coming months, but official timeframes have not been released.
TR returned to San Diego in July.
Geoff is the managing editor of Military Times, but he still loves writing stories. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com.
