Groton — Waiting for his son to surface from the recently docked submarine, Derrick Jackson announced "1,700 miles and counting."

Jackson was referring to the number of miles he and his wife, Talethia, traveled by car from Beaumont, Texas, where they live, to Groton to greet their son Nicholas Jackson, 26, who returned Friday from a six-month deployment onboard the Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Providence (SSN-719), which is homeported at the Naval Submarine Base.

"There he is," Derrick Jackson, a retired Air Force senior master sergeant, shouted upon seeing his son.

The couple hit the road around 3 p.m. Monday, stopping at 4 a.m. Tuesday "somewhere in Alabama," Derrick said, and then driving the rest of the way to Groton, arriving about 4 a.m. Wednesday.

Talethia said that she enjoyed the drive and seeing the foliage, but that the enjoyment stopped when the couple hit New York. They were doing 55 miles per hour, and drivers doing 75 to 80 miles per hour flew by them, Derrick said.

Fresh off the Providence from his first deployment, Nicholas Jackson, an information systems technician, was going to say that the deployment was long "but that seems kind of cliche," he said. "So it was fun. I had a lot of fun."

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A highlight for Jackson was the port call in Toulon, France. While there, the crew played French submariners in basketball.

Asked whether the crew won, Jackson said, "Yeah, we beat 'em."

Jackson, who was in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program in high school, said he joined the Navy "to make something for myself."

"I figured this would be a good platform for me to be able to excel in my career," he continued.

Aside from Nicholas, the Jacksons have two other sons, one in the Air Force and the other is a correctional officer.

About 135 crew members are assigned to Providence, and half of them, if not more, were on their first deployment.

During the deployment, Providence steamed more than 32,000 nautical miles, the equivalent of traveling from New London to San Diego and back seven times, and visited Duqm, Oman; Manama, Bahrain; Toulon and Rota, Spain.

During the midnight watch one night while on mission, a radio message came in and Cmdr. Tony Grayson, commanding officer of the Providence, said he woke up and went out to the passageway, where he was greeted with several congratulations.  

What Grayson didn't realize until a few moments later was that he was the U.S. Fleet Forces Command recipient of the Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale Leadership award.

The award, established in honor of Vice Adm. Stockdale, who led a distinguished naval career, is given annually to two commissioned officers on active duty with the rank of commander or below for their leadership skills.

Grayson was quick to credit the crew for the award.

"I'm just humbled to be honored with that kind of award," he said, fresh off the Providence. "It's really the guys who got me there, the guys who carried me through."

Grayson said the crew had a great time working with other nations' navies. The Providence went southbound through the Suez Canal with the HMS Success, an Australian ship.

The crew did above and beyond what it was asked, according to Grayson, who said they received personal congratulations from Vice Adm. James Foggo, who was most recently Sixth Fleet Commander, and Vice Adm. John Miller, who was most recently Fifth Fleet Commander.

While the Providence was in Bahrain, Miller invited the whole wardroom over to his villa, Grayson said, "and basically filled us full with shawarma."

Although it was a regularly scheduled deployment, the USS Providence came home ahead of two Navy milestones: the service's 240th birthday on Oct. 13, and the 100th anniversary of the first submarine to arrive at the sub base on Oct. 18.

The Navy considers Los Angeles-class attack submarines as the backbone of the submarine force; 41 currently are in commission.

j.bergman@theday.com

Twitter: @JuliaSBergman