USS Gerald R. Ford will return to Norfolk Saturday.
After 327 days at sea, the aircraft carrier set a record for the longest deployment since the Vietnam War.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is expected to be on hand at Naval Station Norfolk, where the families of 4,600 sailors are expected to crowd the pier. Sen. Mark Warner praised the sailors' dedication, while questioning the need for the 327-day deployment.
“The notion that they were deployed for a long time, Middle East, waiting on the president to feel when it's in his bones to declare victory over Iran. That is not treating our military with the respect they deserve,” he said, during a news conference.
Warner plans to meet with sailors and their families in the coming weeks. After it arrives, the aircraft carrier is expected to go into an extended maintenance cycle at Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
Also on Friday, Warner called on the Veterans Health Administration to provide answers as to why open positions were eliminated at VA facilities throughout Virginia. His office has information that 1,700 positions were eliminated throughout the state, including 700 vacancies at the Hampton Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 300 at the Richmond VAMC and 200 at the Salem VAMC.
“They have been totally non-transparent, and we don't even know how many of the elimination of these positions are taking place at the new facility in Spotsylvania or the other one in Chesapeake that we've literally spent years building,” Warner said.
The North Battlefield Clinic in Chesapeake opened in April 2025. In February, VA Secretary Doug Collins told Congress that the VA had hired 335 out of 534 positions at the clinic, just over 60 %. During the opening of the North Battlefield Clinic, Collins said the clinic would reach full staff by January.
Warner questioned whether open positions were cut at clinics around the state that have not reached full staff. Warner and Sen. Tim Kaine have written to the VA secretary asking for more details.
“All we are doing is taking unfilled and unnecessary positions off the books,” said Collins, in a December 15 post on X. He added that no VA employees will be fired.
The New York Times reports that the VA chose not to hire replacements for roughly 14,400 unfilled medical vacancies at its health care division nationwide, including doctors and nurses.
