JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 It was an emotional day at Naval Station Mayport. Family and friends waved goodbye as 300 U.S. Navy Sailors deployed on the USS Delbert D. Black. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s the 1st ship of the year to deploy from Naval Station Mayport. And for some Sailors, it also marks their first deployment. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to go on our first deployment,\u201d Officer Chandler Stiles said. \u201cFinally, do what we came to do, do what we signed up for.\u201d<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Officer Chandler Stiles was born and raised on the west side of Jacksonville. He attended the Naval Academy and decided to be stationed at Mayport to be close to home. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a special moment,\u201d Officer Stiles said. <\/p>\n Officer Stiles\u2019 father, Gylenn Stiles, was a Chief Petty Officer at NAS Jax and started his Naval career at Naval Station Mayport. He says for him it\u2019s a full circle moment.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel extremely proud,\u201d CPO Glyenn Stiles said. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be interesting to be on the opposite side. I\u2019m just so proud. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty exciting,\u201d Cmdr. Ezra Hatch said, Commanding Officer of the USS Delbert D. Black.<\/p>\n We do not know where the ship is deploying to for security purposes. <\/p>\n Given the US airstrikes on Venezuela this morning, we asked Cmdr. Hatch if he had a message to his Sailors. He says to remember their training.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been on many deployments. I\u2019ve been on many ships, and I can tell you this is by far the best prepared ship that I\u2019ve ever been on,\u201d Cmdr. Hatch said.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t know exactly how long this ship will be deployed for operational security purposes. However, a spokesperson for the U.S. Navy told me that the average deployment length ranges between 6 and 7 months, with the understanding that it could be extended even longer.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 It was an emotional day at Naval Station Mayport. Family and friends waved goodbye as…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":490155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[7320,5229,7323,3188,723,7324,7310,7327,7325,7326,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7322,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-490154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-cbs47","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-fox30","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-jacksonville-fl","16":"tag-northeast-florida","17":"tag-southeast-georgia","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-wfox","25":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115832967898100400","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490154","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=490154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}