NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — The Navy's Carrier Strike Group Two is another step closer to being combat ready with the return of its flagship from maintenance.
Rear Adm. P. Scott Miller took over as the strike group's commanding officer Monday. The Change of Command ceremony was held aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, which returned to Naval Station Norfolk after a year-and-a-half of maintenance.
"Soon we will have all of the elements joined and we will learn to operate as a single well-oiled machine," Miller said during the ceremony.
The maintenance phase was mostly overseen by outgoing strike group commander Rear Adm. Dusty Rhodes, who noted the carrier wrapped up repairs ahead of schedule.
"Actually came out of the availability earlier by about a month than what was originally planned," Rhodes said.
Rhodes acknowledged the Eisenhower's return comes at a time when the Navy has been busy with operations around the world. The Lincoln and Bush carrier strike groups are still overseas as the U.S. hopes to end the war with Iran. The USS Gerald R. Ford returned last month after a historically long deployment.
"Certainly, you will leave on deployment thinking you know what you're gonna do. But if you look at what happened with the Ford, they did a bunch of stuff they didn't think they were gonna have to do, so you never really know, so you have to be ready for anything," Rhodes said.
Rhodes said the Eisenhower and the rest of the strike group will begin preparing for a deployment scheduled for next year.
"You start getting the team together. So you get all the ships, the aircraft carrier and the air wing. A crawl, walk, run mindset, where by the end of it, they'll [get certified] to be able to deploy anywhere in the world to be able to take on any adversary," Rhodes said, echoing what he told the audience earlier during the ceremony.
"A carrier strike group is one of the most versatile, lethal and powerful instruments of national influence on the globe."
Click here to see how we use AI at WTKR News 3.
