The deployment of the Carl Vinson Strike Group will be extended for at least 30 days as the ship heads to the Korean Peninsula.
Rear Admiral Jim Kilby, Commander, Carrier Strike Group One made the announcement public on the carrier’s Facebook page.
The letter reads, in part: "Our deployment has been extended 30 days to provide a persistent presence in the Waters off the Korean Peninsula. While all of us look forward to being connected with our friends and families, our nation requires us to be its flexible force."
Families of those deployed aboard the Vinson tell NBC7 they are a bit concerned.
One Navy spouse and mother, Merrill, whose husband is deployed with the strike group, said she tries to focus on the positive.
"They're just out there, doing their jobs, and I know that they all know what they have to do and are very well trained, so I try not to get too nervous," she said.
President Trump made it sound as if the carrier strike group was moving immediately to the Korean Peninsula in an interview last week following increased tensions with North Korea.
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However, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis did not quite characterize it that way,
"The Vinson, as I said on the record, was operating up-and-down the western Pacific and we're doing exactly what we said, and that is we are shifting her instead of continuing one direction as she pulled out of Singapore,” he told reporters overseas in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
"The bottom line is in our effort to always be open about what we're doing, we said that we were going to change the Vinson's upcoming schedule," Mattis said.
