{"id":119549,"date":"2025-08-05T00:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T00:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/119549\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T00:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T00:53:08","slug":"family-says-goodbye-to-uss-st-louis-as-it-deploys-to-fight-drug-trafficking-in-caribbean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/119549\/","title":{"rendered":"Family says goodbye to USS St. Louis as it deploys to fight drug trafficking in Caribbean"},"content":{"rendered":"

NAVAL STATION MAYPORT, Fla. <\/strong> \u2013 Four-year-old Ricky stands at Naval Station Mayport, his eyes fixed on the USS St. Louis.<\/p>\n

The 378-foot Freedom-variant littoral combat ship rests against the dock. It is the biggest vessel Ricky says he has ever seen.<\/p>\n

He calls it \u201cMommy\u2019s ship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crews preparing the USS St. Louis for deployment to the Caribbean. (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

His mom, Victoria Cavazos, serves as weapons officer aboard the St. Louis. On Monday, she embarked on a deployment to the Caribbean, leaving her husband, Ryan Donlon and young son behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d Ricky asked curiously.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause she has to stop the bad guys, right?\u201d Donlon replied.<\/p>\n

The deployment will send the St. Louis to work alongside the Coast Guard to support \u201ccounter-illicit drug trafficking in the Caribbean.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February, the ship returned from an 8-month deployment, disrupting and confiscating over $100-million worth of illicit contraband in five different operations.<\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>Smiles, hugs, kisses greet sailors of USS St. Louis after 8-month deployment<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the bad guys are trying to bring bad stuff into the country and she\u2019s going to take care of it,\u201d Donlon said, translating complex military operations into terms a child can grasp.<\/p>\n

Donlon, an instructor at Surface Combat Systems Training Command Mayport, knows these goodbyes from both sides of the pier. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very hard to not cry whether it\u2019s her or it\u2019s me,\u201d he said, remembering their reunion from that deployment in February. \u201cThe last moment when she came back was something out of a storybook. It was the biggest hug.\u201d<\/p>\n

USS St. Louis crew member embraces their son after returning to Naval Station Mayport in February following an 8-month deployment. (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

And after a brief weather delay on Monday, the crew loaded the ship, lowered the flag and blew its horn.<\/p>\n

The 75-member crew is expected to be out at sea for about 7 to 9 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be easy,\u201d Donlon said. \u201cBut they know what to do. They\u2019ve been trained for it, and they\u2019re going to kick butt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NAVAL STATION MAYPORT, Fla. \u2013 Four-year-old Ricky stands at Naval Station Mayport, his eyes fixed on the USS…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":119550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,45083,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,74506],"class_list":{"0":"post-119549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-naval-station-mayport","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa","19":"tag-uss-st-louis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114973429355775050","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}