The Pentagon announced that the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford returned to the United States on Saturday after a 326-day deployment in the Middle East.

The U.S. military said on X that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was present in Norfolk, Virginia, to welcome back the world’s largest aircraft carrier.

The USS Gerald Ford had sailed to the Middle East before the outbreak of the war with Iran as part of U.S. military reinforcements in the region.

According to Agence France-Presse, the deployment marked the longest mission for a U.S. carrier strike group since the Vietnam War.