ABOARD THE USS GERALD R. FORD (NEWSnet/AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin went aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier Wednesday to meet with sailors whose mission is to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from expanding into a regional conflict.
The aircraft carrier’s more than 4,000 sailors and the accompanying warships were supposed to be home in early November.
Using the public address system of the Ford, which is sailing a few hundred miles off the coast of Israel, Austin thanked the sailors and their families for giving up spending the holidays together because of the mission.
“Sometimes our greatest achievements are the bad things we stop from happening,” Austin told the crew. “In a moment of huge tension in the region, you all have been the linchpin of preventing a wider regional conflict.”
The defense secretary then met with a group of sailors in the Ford’s hangar bay to talk about the mission and the region.
He thanked them for keeping attention on cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, and later told reporters traveling with him that if Israel transitions away from major combat operations in Gaza, it could possibly ease some of the regional tension that has kept the Ford in place.
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