By Lara Seligman and Milàn Czerny

One sailor missed the death of his great-grandfather. Another is thinking about leaving the Navy after almost a year away from her toddler daughter. Two more said the ship had sewage problems.

President Trump's decision to extend for a second time the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford is taking a toll on the ship's sailors and their families, and leading some to consider leaving the Navy when they return to home port, according to interviews with sailors on board the ship and their family members back home.

The Ford, the U.S.'s largest warship, has been at sea since last June. In October, the Pentagon rerouted the ship from its scheduled Mediterranean mission to the Caribbean to support oil-tanker seizures and the U.S. operation to capture Nicolás Maduro, then Venezuela's leader.

Then earlier this year, the crew got word that their deployment would be extended again, taking them back across the Atlantic Ocean to the Middle East to support potential American airstrikes on Iran. The Ford transited the Strait of Gibraltar on Friday, heading east, according to a satellite photo obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

Carrier deployments during peacetime are typically six months long, with planners allowing for a few months of potential overrun if needed, said Mark Montgomery, a retired rear admiral. But the Ford's sailors have been away from home for eight months already, setting up a possible deployment of 11 months, he said. That would break the record for a continuous deployment by a U.S. Navy ship.

The Navy has 11 carriers in total, all of which are following long-planned schedules. At any one time, some are dispatched to different areas of the globe, some are conducting training, and others are undergoing maintenance. Besides the Ford, the USS Abraham Lincoln and its carrier strike group has also been sent to the Middle East.

In a statement, a Navy official acknowledged the challenges inherent in naval service and said Navy leaders make it a priority to support sailors and their families.

Overtaxed crews can be a problem across the Navy's fleet, beyond just the Ford. In April and May 2025, near the end of an eight-month deployment, the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman lost several jet fighters while countering Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea. A Navy investigation blamed the high operational tempo of the mission.

One sailor on board the Ford told the Journal that many crew members are angry and upset, with some saying they want to leave the Navy at the end of the deployment.

The sailor said she was strongly considering quitting herself. She said she misses her toddler daughter, but the unpredictability of when she would see her family again hurt the most.

Extensions can mean missing birthdays, weddings, funerals or a child's birth.

Capt. David Skarosi, the Ford's commanding officer, acknowledged what he called the "sting" of the additional extension, adding it caught even him by surprise. In a Feb. 14 letter to the crew's families after the second extension was announced, he wrote that he had expected to be home within weeks, fixing the fence in his backyard.

"I've spoken to many of your Sailors who are coming to terms with missing Disney World plans, weddings they already RSVP'd to attend, and spring break trips to Busch Gardens," Skarosi wrote in the letter seen by the Journal. But "when our country calls, we answer," he concluded.

The sacrifice doesn't sit well with all of his crew of roughly 5,000. Many of the sailors on the Ford are men and women in their early 20s who miss their parents and home-cooked meals. Others have their own children. They try to stay in touch with loved ones through phone calls and WhatsApp messages, but the secrecy around carrier movements means their communication with their families is sporadic and unpredictable.

Other sailors on board the Ford see extended periods away from home as just a part of the job. One told the Journal that although the extension was hard and everyone was tired, all sailors knew what they had signed up for. Their mission is to make sure that fighting never hits the home front, he said -- and that can require long and stressful deployments.

Adm. Daryl Caudle, the chief of naval operations, lamented extended deployments in a meeting with reporters in January, noting the financial impact on the Navy as well as the burden on crews and their families.

Long deployments can also be hard on ships themselves. After eight months at sea, equipment starts to break and long-planned maintenance and upgrades have to be postponed, disrupting schedules at the shipyards, Montgomery said. That has a knock-on effect on the maintenance and training cycles of other ships, he said.

It is typical for Jami Prosser, who lives in Pennsylvania, to not hear from his son, a flight deck controller on the Ford, for two or three weeks at a time when the ship is in "ghost mode," he told the Journal. Then one night the phone will ring at 3 a.m. and it will be his son calling from a port stop.

Prosser's son, who has two children, has been absent for the death of his great-grandfather, his sister's divorce and his brother's health problems during the Ford's current deployment, his father said. He also hasn't been able to make needed repairs to his house, such as painting the outside trim.

Prosser said his son had mentioned problems with the toilets on the ship, without going into detail. NPR first reported in January that a number of toilets on the Ford were out of commission.

The Navy official said the Ford's sewage system, which uses vacuum technology to transport waste from roughly 650 toilets on board, has experienced issues during the deployment, averaging about one maintenance call a day. But the situation is improving and the problems haven't impacted the carrier's ability to carry out its mission, the official said.

Maintaining contact with loved ones is challenging, said Rosarin McGhee, who is married to a sailor on the Ford, as the ship can go days with no signal. McGhee, who has been living alone in Virginia Beach, Va., for the past eight months while her husband is at sea, regularly sends him handwritten letters and care packages. She has sent him 17 boxes so far, filled with food and small gifts.

"I must stay here by myself, no matter how lonely or overwhelming it becomes," she said, adding that hearing about Trump's decision to extend the ship's deployment was "heartbreaking."

Charlene Poston was ready for her son, an aviation ordnance man responsible for loading bombs onto aircraft, to come home on Feb. 2, she told the Journal. She and her mother had planned to drive from their home in Canton, Miss., to Virginia Beach to meet him. She had booked accommodation via Airbnb and a rental car. But on Jan. 22 her son texted her to cancel everything because they had just been told of their latest extension. She said she broke down in tears.

"I'm so ready for him to come home. They are so young, and to us they are still babies," Poston said. But her son is still in good spirits, she said, and has asked her to send him wipes and cookies.

Scott Tomlin from Virginia said his son, who supervises supplies coming aboard the Ford, doesn't like the food on the carrier. His son regularly asks the family to send him macaroni and cheese, spam and hot sauce, Tomlin said. His son's girlfriend starts his truck up periodically to make sure it is still working.

Tomlin said his son had told him that the sewage problem was under control. The most grievous incident: someone had thrown garbage in a toilet on the carrier's lowest deck.

Write to Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 21, 2026 08:00 ET (13:00 GMT)

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