On Friday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that he had ordered “adjustments” to the U.S. military presence in the Middle East in response to Iranian threats that come in the wake of Israel‘s killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran.
The USS Abraham Lincoln strike group — which was already slated to deploy — was ordered to move to the region and replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group.
It is not clear when the Lincoln will arrive in the area as it just pulled into Guam for a port visit Sunday. While the decision does not mean that sailors who are part of that strike group will be away from their families longer than expected, it does place them in the middle of escalating tensions as the violence in Gaza and Israel has begun to radiate to nearby countries.
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Meanwhile, a Navy official also told Military.com that two of the five destroyers sailing with the USS Theodore Roosevelt — the USS Laboon and USS Cole — have been ordered to move to the Red Sea and toward Israel. That strike group is sailing near Iran in the Gulf of Oman, the Navy official confirmed Monday.
The service also has had the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group, or ARG, which includes the USS Wasp, the USS Oak Hill and the USS New York, as well as the destroyers USS Roosevelt and USS Bulkeley, in the eastern Mediterranean since before…
