The USS Cole, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, left Naval Station Mayport in Florida on June 5, 2025, deploying to the Gulf of America and the Caribbean to help secure the U.S. southern border. U.S. NORTHERN COMMAND
The United States Navy is rotating two Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers as it continues to secure the Mexico-U.S. border and its maritime approaches in the Gulf of America and the Caribbean Sea. The USS Cole, which is replacing the USS Gravely, departed June 5 from Naval Air Station Mayport in Florida. The Cole’s deployment is being coordinated by U.S. Northern Command, which is in close contact with the U.S. 2nd Fleet and U.S Naval Forces Southern Command.
The Gravely’ s tour began in March 2025. In May, the 155-meter vessel with an embedded U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement detachment (LEDET) disrupted a drug-smuggling operation, seizing nine bales of cocaine weighing more than 400 kilograms and worth $13.7 million. P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol planes spotted the vessel on May 25, and a LEDET team boarded it soon afterward. The Gravely is now returning to its home port of Norfolk, Virginia. “USS Gravely remains at the forefront of maritime operations, ready to take on any challenge,” said Cmdr. Gregory Piorun, the Gravely’s commanding officer, in a USNORTHCOM news release. “We will continue to stand strong, protect vital waters, and ensure that justice prevails. True to our motto, we remain always, ‘First to Conquer.’”
The Cole will be on the hunt for similar criminal activity as it supports USNORTHCOM’s border security objectives. The Cole’s deployment “aims to enhance maritime security and support interagency collaboration in the region through presence operations and the support of an embarked U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment,” the news release stated.
The Cole, also homeported in Norfolk, Virginia, will deploy under U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command’s U.S. 4th Fleet. “This operation supports the administration’s focus on integrated homeland defense and maritime border security,” said Capt. Raymond Jackson, commanding officer, Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Team South. “By uniting Coast Guard law enforcement expertise with Navy reach and surveillance, we’re enhancing deterrence, increasing domain awareness and reinforcing our commitment to protecting the homeland.”
The Cole will also carry an embedded LEDET, which employs Coast Guardsmen with “a unique legal authority to conduct U.S. law enforcement operations in support of border security,” the release stated. Pairing the expertise of the Navy with the Coast Guard enhances force projection and capabilities. “Utilizing the Coast Guard’s jurisdiction, the Cole will employ LEDET personnel to perform vessel boardings, searches, and seizures in U.S. and international waters, targeting drug trafficking, illegal immigration, and transnational crime with a nexus to the U.S. southern border …This collaboration ensures a robust, legally empowered response to maritime threats, strengthening U.S. border protection efforts,” the release stated.
In December 2024, the Cole returned to Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia after a seven-month combat deployment, including high-conflict areas in the Middle East, according to Stars and Stripes, a U.S. military newspaper.