EVERETT, Wash. - The USS Abraham Lincoln slowly pulled out of Homeport Naval Station Everett on Tuesday morning. The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is on routine deployment to international waters.
Earlier Tuesday morning, hundreds of sailors said goodbye to families and friends.
"It's tough leaving my wife but this is what we do and we'll be coming back," said sailor Clayton Cheever.
It's especially hard on families left behind. Newlywed Shenite Joseph hugs her husband goodbye.
"They (the Navy) have him more than I do, but it's what he has to do and I'll be OK," she said.
More than 5,000 men and women will live aboard the USS Lincoln for the next several months. They are on a routine deployment in the western Pacific, Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf, and will be conducting military training and operations.
Many in the Everett community are worried about the future of the USS Lincoln and keeping its home port in Everett. The ship will go to Virginia next year for maintenance and it may not return.
"That final decision is still being mulled over in Washington, D.C., but a lot of us love the Northwest and would like to stay," said Capt. John Alexander.
Whatever the outcome, Alexander says, "we're on a deployment now and we have our orders and that's what we'll do."
The USS Lincoln and the destroyers Momsen and Shoup are expected to be gone for at least six months.
The Lincoln will pick up another 2,000 people with its air wing in Southern California along with several more ships in its strike group.
The Lincoln returned from a seven-month mission supporting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in October 2008 and underwent a nine-month $250 million overhaul at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
