Donald Trump’s decision to extend the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford, now heading back toward the Middle East to support potential American airstrikes on Iran, is taking a toll on the ship’s sailors and their families.

The Ford has been at sea for 241 days, her deployment extended twice, with a third leg now underway.

Sailors are missing funerals, births, their children’s first steps, according to interviews conducted by The Wall Street Journal.

Crew members told reporters they want to quit the Navy.

Morale of the sailors was described in terms not heard from defence correspondents since the Vietnam War era.

The Ford, the U.S.’s largest warship, carries approximately 5,000 sailors and over 75 aircraft.

According to WSJ, 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.

The Ford has been at sea since June, 2025.

In October, the Pentagon rerouted the ship from a scheduled Mediterranean mission to the Caribbean to support oil-tanker seizures and a US operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

Earlier this year, the crew was informed that their deployment would be extended again, taking them back across the Atlantic Ocean toward the Middle East. The Ford transited the Strait of Gibraltar on Friday, heading east, according to a satellite photo obtained by WSJ.

The Ford’s sailors have already been away from home for eight months.

Besides the Ford, the USS Harry S. Truman has also been deployed to the Middle East in recent months.

In April and May 2025, near the end of an eight-month deployment, Truman lost several jet fighters while countering Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea.

A Navy investigation later blamed the high operational tempo of the mission.

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.

One sailor on board the Ford told the WSJ that she was considering quitting. She said she misses her toddler daughter, but the unpredictability of when she would see her family again hurt the most.

Extensions meant 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 February 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.

Communication with loved ones remains sporadic and unpredictable due to operational secrecy around carrier movements.

Jami Prosser, who lives in Pennsylvania, said it was typical for him not to 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.”

Prosser said his son had 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.

He also 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.

Rosarin McGhee, who is married to a sailor on the Ford and has been living alone in Virginia Beach for the past eight months, regularly sends handwritten letters and care packages. She has sent him 17 boxes so far.

“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.”