The USS Gravely returned to Norfolk Saturday after four months in the Caribbean. This was the second time the destroyer deployed to the region this year.
Since September, the U.S has struck 23 small boats, killing at least 87 people. The Trump administration has said without providing evidence that the boats were carrying drugs. The Gravely’s captain, Cmdr. Gregory Piorun, wouldn’t elaborate on the destroyer's role.
“I follow the news. I also follow the orders of the Secretary of War and the President of the United States, and so that's what we carry out,” he said.
In October, the ship stopped for a long weekend at port in Trinidad and Tobago only miles from Venezuela. The Venezuelan government declared the visit a provocation before the destroyer left.
“It's an opportunity to build and maintain relationships in the region,” Piorun said. “We take every chance we get. We're also in Puerto Rico for brief stops for fuel. But essentially, the whole reason we were in Trinidad and Tobago is just to strengthen the relationships that we already have.”
The Gravely has been the most active ship in the Trump administration’s build up in the Caribbean. In March, it was the first Navy ship sent to the Caribbean and the Gulf Coast. The crew spent three months searching for boats carrying migrants and conducting drug interdiction with a Coast Guard law enforcement team embedded on board.
On May 25, the ship stood by as the Coast Guard arrested the crew of a ship that was found to carry 860 pounds of cocaine. Sailors from the destroyer helped fish drugs from the water before the Gravely sank the empty vessel, Piorun said, in June when the ship returned to Norfolk. The initial operation was part of Northern Command.
In August the ship left again, this time as part of a build up of U.S. forces run by U.S. Southern Command, which included the three ships of the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group from Norfolk and its 2,000 Marines. The USS Gerald R. Ford Strike group arrived in November with the Norfolk-based carrier and three destroyers.
The operation shifted dramatically on Sept. 2 when the U.S. struck the first small boat. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been demanding answers about a second strike on the boat that killed civilians in the water.
In an escalation of the conflict last week the Justice Department seized an oil tanker that the administration said was carrying sanctioned oil from Venezuela.
Prior to being deployed twice to the Caribbean, USS Gravely spent nine months in the Red Sea in 2023 and 2024 with the USS Eisenhower Strike Group, which the Navy considered one of the most active conflicts for a strike group since World War II, where the Navy squared off against Houthi Rebels in Yemen, which used drones and anti-ship missiles.
On Saturday, Ricardo Ibarra waited on the pier for his son Petty Officer Third Class Marco Ibarra to arrive.
“It's been a little mind numbing and unnerving just knowing what these boys have been going through,” Ricardo said. “ So, yeah, just happy to see them here now, especially with all the close calls that they were going through when they were out there in the Red Sea. You couldn't pick three more different deployments than this ship has had.”
The USS Gravely arrived at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown last week to unload weapons. Some of the families embarked on the destroyer at Yorktown and rode the ship back to Norfolk Saturday afternoon.
The ship is now scheduled to go into a maintenance period, according to Capt. Piorun.
“The crew's been extremely busy, but the resiliency that this team has — I've never worked with a group of individuals quite like this. It’s a special ship,” he said.
