The destroyer USS Mitscher pulled into Norfolk Tuesday morning. Jessica Johnson was on the pier, waiting for her son, Chrystion Taileur. He has been in the Navy less than two years and this was his first deployment.
Johnson left the Navy in 2012, after eight years. She deployed several times but nothing close to the nearly 11 months the Mischer spent at sea.
“No, that was unheard of, actually. At the time, it was only a six month deployment back then,” Johnson said, adding she was relieved that he was finally home.
The ship deployed a month after USS Gerald R. Ford. Mitscher arrived home roughly a month after the aircraft carrier. Ford had broken a record for the longest deployment by a carrier since the Vietnam War. Destroyers are the workhorses of the Navy fleet. They will routinely deploy at a higher pace than the larger carriers. Capt. Stephen Prugh, the commanding officer of USS Mitscher, said did not know if his ship had broken a record.
“I'm not sure if anybody knows if that's a record,” Prugh said. “But what I can say is we work day in, day out, just to accomplish the mission, and some days are longer than others.”
In 2020, the Navy said the destroyer USS Stout broke a record by being at sea for 215 days without a port visit during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2024, the Navy said the destroyer USS Carney deployed for 235 days after Israel declared war in Gaza. Tuesday marked the 237th day since USS Mitscher left Norfolk.
The destroyer trained with the USS Ford Strike group before leaving Norfolk, but the ship deployed independently. USS Mitscher worked with USS Ford but it also worked with the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during Operation Epic Fury. The ship also worked alongside the United Kingdom’s carrier strike group, HMS Prince of Wales, during NATO exercises in the Northern Atlantic.
Arligh Burke-class destroyers carry a crew of roughly 330. The ship had been gone so long that a cluster of new parents huddled at the end of the gangway to present their sailors with children who had been born since the deployment began. Hundreds of relatives crowded the pier.
“I thought they were going to come home in February - quick little six months, nine months, maybe. But 11 months, that's crazy. Definitely caught us by surprise,” said Alexis Logan, who waited on the pier for her husband Petty Officer First Class Knill Logan, along with their two small children. The deployment was long enough that she was able to buy a home and move their family while he was on deployment.
