Double-Pumping Truman: I Thought we Weren't Doing this Anymore?

Maybe it is just me, but in the self-reflection that the Navy community underwent after the horrible summer of 2017 and the growing realization of issues revolving from undermanned and under-maintained ships, that we were going to do a better job of not "shooting up the horse" by burning out sea-duty Sailors and the ships they serve on.

Already down the memory hole?

Via Megan Eckstein at USNINews, in part;

USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) and its carrier strike group are getting ready for another deployment overseas, after completing a two-part deployment last year.

... likely this fall.

USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) would have been the next carrier to head out from the East Coast under previous plans, USNI News understands, but its maintenance availability ran 19 months – more than triple the planned six-month maintenance availability the Navy planned to conduct. USNI News confirmed that the Truman CSG is heading out for its second deployment in the place of the IKE CSG, which will still have to go through its whole training cycle after wrapping up its maintenance and conducting post-maintenance sea trials in early April.

Four sources familar with the planning told to USNI News that the Truman CSG is prepping for this double-pump deployment, which will take place during the strike group’s “sustainment phase” in the Optimized Fleet Response Plan (OFPR) readiness generation model and will not delay the ship from conducting maintenance of its own. The sustainment phase reserves time for the ships to keep their readiness up through home-based training activities or larger exercises in case they are called upon to surge forward or deploy for other reasons.

The Truman Strike Group last year departed in April, returned home in July for a working homeport visit, and then departed again from September to December. Rather than conducting operations in the Middle East, the carrier strike group conducted flight operations north of the Arctic Circle for the first time since the Cold War, operated in Norwegian waters during the Trident Juncture 2018 exercise, and patrolled the Mediterranean Sea.

There will always be a reason to ask more. The USN has a culture of, "can do." It is up to senior leadership to say, "no."

Instead of underlining a new era, it appears we are simply regressing to the mean.

This also calls in to question those who have stated that we have enough carriers that we can not refuel the TRUMAN next decade. 

A lost opportunity resulting in another stew of mixed messaging floating in a bed of cynicism.