Thousands of sailors from the Ford Carrier Strike Group were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation today for their active role in the war with Iran, where they dealt with constant threat of enemy attack while carrying out or coordinating hundreds of strikes on Iranian targets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth presented the Presidential Unit Citation to the crews in Norfolk, Virginia. According to the citation, signed by Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, the award is for “outstanding performance in action against enemy forces from 28 February to 1 May 2026 in Support of Operation Epic Fury. The personnel of Carrier Strike Group Twelve distinguished themselves by outstanding warfighting prosecution while engaged in sustained combat operations against a determined enemy.”
The award was given as the Ford, the Navy’s largest aircraft carrier, returned to its home port in Norfolk after nearly a year at sea. The welcome home ceremony was attended by Hegseth, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle and others.
The Presidential Unit Citation is the military’s top honor for a collective unit. The citation is extremely rare, with recipients being troops who have participated in some of the biggest operations in the military, such as 1st Marine Division, which received the Presidential Unit Citation for the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir in 1950, or 2nd Ranger Battalion for its actions on D-Day in 1944.
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Along with the titular carrier, the Ford Carrier Strike Group included the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers the USS Winston S. Churchill, the USS Bainbridge and USS Mahan, with other ships joining and leaving over the course of its 326-day deployment. Nine squadrons make up Carrier Air Wing Eight, which returned home earlier this week.
According to the citation, the strike group played a varied and active role in combat operations, with units within it coordinating strikes on Iranian warships and land targets, as well as carrying out more than 1,700 air sorties. Notably, the citation says that the strike group did all of this while “under persistent threat from enemy missiles and one-way attack drones.”
The citation is the highest award given so far to the ongoing war with Iran. The conflict is still ongoing, with a temporary and fragile ceasefire in place as several ships including two other aircraft carriers, operate in the waters around the Middle East.
326 days abroad
The Ford Carrier Strike Group’s award stems from the ongoing war, but the ships have been on a globe-trotting deployment that took sailors to some of the U.S. military’s newest conflict zones. The Ford originally set sail in June 2025. The ship crossed the Atlantic Ocean, arriving in the Mediterranean Sea the next month. In September, the carrier passed through the Strait of Gibraltar again, heading up to northern Europe to take part in NATO exercises. By late October, the strike group was back in the Mediterranean when it got orders to head to the Caribbean in support of a major naval build up.
By the end of the year, the Ford was in the Caribbean, supporting Task Force Southern Spear. That task force was officially there to deal with alleged drug smuggling boats, but the mission also shifted to pressuring Venezuela. In January, the Ford took part in Operation Absolute Resolve, the attack on Venezuela that included the special operations raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. After that mission, the sailors continued operations, with the carrier being used as a launching point for boarding parties that seized sanctioned oil tankers.
The Ford’s deployment was already stretching past the usual seven months at sea in February, when the carrier strike group was again ordered to cross the Atlantic, this time to support the buildup of American forces in the Middle East. On Feb. 28, Israeli and American forces launched attacks on Iran. The Ford was one of several ships participating in Operation Epic Fury, along with the USS Abraham Lincoln and its carrier strike group. A third carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush joined the American presence there afterwards. The operation saw thousands of Iranian targets hit, including dozens of the country’s ships.
The deployment was one of the longest in the Navy’s last 50 years. At 326 days deployed, the Ford is only behind the USS Nimitz’s 341-day deployment, which happened during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021. Outside of major combat operations, the Ford’s crew had several challenges. There were repeated problems with the ship’s plumbing, with toilets overflowing and flooding rooms. In March, a fire broke out in the ship’s laundry room, damaging a chunk of the ship. The Ford was sent away from Operation Epic Fury, heading to a stint at a European port for repairs.
