The sailors and Marines of the USS Abraham Lincoln got the break the ship’s own commanders had been promising for months. This week the carrier group pulled into Chon Buri province on Thailand’s eastern coast for a five-day rest and relaxation port call, the crew’s first real liberty since the carrier left home in November. Within hours, thousands of sailors were making their way into Pattaya, the beach city about a two-hour drive from Bangkok that’s long carried the nickname Thailand’s “Sin City.”
Beezloop has followed this deployment closely, from the carrier’s record-breaking run of days at sea to reports of a crew stretched thin on morale and supplies to the ship’s own rust-streaked arrival off Pattaya last week. This is the next chapter: the actual port call, and what happened once thousands of young sailors hit the streets after nearly 300 days without setting foot on land.
A night out after a brutal stretch at sea
Videos and photos that circulated on social media this week showed sailors streaming down Pattaya’s Walking Street and packed into the city’s bars and clubs, the kind of scene that plays out whenever a Navy port call lands in a resort town built around nightlife. For a crew that had spent close to nine months at sea supporting operations tied to the war with Iran and the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, the mood by most accounts was less debauched than simply relieved. Sailors described wanting nothing more than solid ground, real food, and a phone signal home.
Pattaya city officials met with Navy representatives ahead of the port call to go over expectations for behavior, a routine step for a city that hosts foreign fleets regularly but one that carried extra weight given how much attention this particular deployment has already drawn.
The commanding officer’s warning, and the one incident that crossed a line
The ship’s commanding officer had warned the crew directly against soliciting prostitutes during the port call, a well-worn caution for any Navy liberty stop in Southeast Asia. Thai police described one incident involving American sailors as minor, and two sailors were returned to the carrier and confined there for the remainder of the visit. Beyond that episode, officials on both sides characterized the port call as orderly.
Elephants, not just Walking Street
Away from the nightlife, plenty of the crew spent their liberty on quieter ground. Groups of sailors and Marines visited an elephant sanctuary outside the city, feeding and bathing the animals in scenes that made for a striking contrast with the images out of Pattaya’s bar district the same week. For a crew that had been confined to a flight deck and passageways for the better part of a year, the appeal of an afternoon with elephants over another crowded bar was real.
What happens next
The five-day call gives the Lincoln’s roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines their only extended stretch on land before the carrier resumes its transit home, a deployment that by the time it ends will rank among the longest in recent Navy history. Whether Pattaya was worth the wait is a question that will likely get different answers depending on who on the flight deck you ask.
