The War Zone has reported:

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln returned to its home port of San Diego on Thursday morning, Oct. 8, after a 321-day deployment, carrying rows of kill marks on its island superstructure that appear to record drones and ships destroyed during its operations against Iran. The markings include at least 103 one-way attack drone silhouettes and 34 ship symbols, according to a count of a photograph and video from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s visit. The totals do not match the figures in the Presidential Unit Citation awarded to the Lincoln Carrier Strike Group for its role in Operation Epic Fury.

Hegseth visited the carrier and its sailors near San Diego on Oct. 7, 2026. A Pentagon-distributed photograph showed him looking at the stencilled symbols on the superstructure. He also posted a message to the crew: “To the sailors of the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN- WELCOME HOME”. The image was credited to U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Madelyn Keech.

The marks counted on the carrier include 103 drone silhouettes and 34 symbols depicting surface ships. The source report said it was not clear whether additional markings were outside the visible areas in the photograph and video. The stencils resemble Iranian Shahed-136 drones and frigates or corvettes, but the symbols represent broader categories: the drone markings could cover different types of one-way attack drones, and the ship symbols serve as generic depictions of surface craft.

During the welcome, Hegseth read from the Presidential Unit Citation and described the strike group’s record during Epic Fury. The citation said it shot down 77 one-way unmanned attack drones and sank 64 Iranian vessels between the operation’s start on Feb. 28 and the group’s departure from the region on Aug. 22. The visible carrier marks therefore include at least 26 more drone symbols and 30 fewer ship symbols than those citation figures, though the reasons for the discrepancy were not clear.

The Pentagon referred questions about the differences to the Navy, and a response from the service was still pending. The carrier markings may also include drone shootdowns credited to escort ships, rather than only aircraft or weapons associated directly with the Lincoln. The strike group’s Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., USS Spruance and USS Michael Murphy, served as key air defence platforms. Those destroyers also launched Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles, and submarines may have participated as well.

The citation listed a wider set of operations by the Lincoln Carrier Strike Group. It conducted 3,693 combat sorties and delivered 1.37 million pounds of ordnance. The group launched 450 Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles, destroyed 21 anti-ship cruise missiles and defended against four fast-attack craft and wooden sailing vessels carrying explosives.

Kill markings have a long history on aircraft, ships and other military equipment, where they indicate the destruction of enemy equipment. Other symbols linked to the Lincoln’s deployment were visible on aircraft that operated from the carrier. These include marks for submarines and other weapons that did not appear in the unit citation or among the stencils visible on the ship.

An image provided to The War Zone by aviation photographer Jeff Rojas, who uses the Instagram handle @jro_photography, showed a submarine kill mark on an F/A-18F Super Hornet flown by the U.S. Navy’s Strike Fighter Squadron 41, known as the Black Aces. The squadron was among the aviation units embarked on the Lincoln during Epic Fury. Iranian naval vessels, including Russian-made Kilo-class submarines and other submarines, were high-priority targets during the operation.

The U.S. military has previously confirmed that air-launched AGM-114 Hellfire laser-guided missiles, likely fired from MQ-9 Reaper drones, and ground-launched Army Tactical Missile System short-range ballistic missiles were used against submarines. VFA-41 alone launched 421 missiles and bombs while supporting Epic Fury, according to the source report.

A separate image published by The Aviationist showed target symbols on a Marine Corps VMFA-314 F-35C. The markings apparently represented an oil tanker, three submarines, a surface combatant, a Shahed-type drone, an artillery piece and several ground-based launchers. The Aviationist published the image on Oct. 5, 2026, describing the aircraft’s markings as an extraordinary array of targets.

The carrier’s return ended a deployment that began when it left San Diego on Nov. 21, 2025. At 321 days, the voyage was the second-longest deployment in the modern carrier era, according to the source report’s count. It was six days short of the 326-day record set by USS Gerald R. Ford in May.

The extended deployment also drew attention to conditions for sailors and Marines aboard. In August, families described supply shortages and difficult living arrangements. Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao called the resulting media coverage dishonest, while acknowledging that a small number of mental health cases had been treated and that meal plans changed when fresh supplies were unavailable. Cao said no meal had been missed and calls home had been limited when the operational threat was too high.

At least eight personnel across the strike group attempted suicide during the deployment, Cao wrote in a letter to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, according to CNN, which obtained the letter. The source report said the cases involved personnel across the strike group, not only the carrier.

Hegseth addressed criticism of the deployment during his visit on Wednesday, Oct. 7, using the carrier as a point of reference. “There were a few folks in the media who tried to turn the USS Abraham Lincoln into some sort of a symbol,” he said. “A symbol of dysfunction, or a symbol of low morale, or a symbol of a failed mission. And what I look out right here or when I talk to your leadership, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to a number of you, I know it’s the exact opposite.”