[Danzig]

it's generally six months...when the eisenhower gets there, maybe then they come back. sometimes ships do deploy for longer if necessary. but after some time, they do have to return--altho there is plenty of preventative mainentance, the time these ships can remain at sea is finite.
and it's laughable the assertion that navy families are 'angry' and officers are 'angry' about this deployment. sailors know full well their job, as do their families. believe me, no one in the navy, and their families, goes into that career thinking they will be home every day!!! when you meet with the recruiter, they have a book listing every career imaginable in the navy. and they all show on the bottom, that in a 20 year period, you can fully expect that 17 of those 20 years will be ship-based, with one average six month cruise in three years. that's just for the extended cruise, with many one week, two week, and month-long or longer deployments in between.

and a nimitz class carrier on average can run 15-25 years between replacing rods in their reactor-just asked my husband of course they have made improvements over the years, newer carriers such as the lincoln and 'big stick'(the teddy roosevelt) might be able to go even longer. also, refits and dry docks are scheduled routine maintenance. and of course depending on how long that takes dictates how long before a carrier is deployed. perhaps the enterprise stayed a bit longer because the ike took a bit longer than scheduled.