1990s and 2000s
During the Haitian migrant crisis of 1991-92, the Dallas performed as the flagship of a flotilla of twenty-seven Coast Guard cutters that rescued 35,000 migrants from hundreds of overcrowded, unseaworthy vessels. The Dallas received a Humanitarian Service Medal and another Coast Guard Unit Commendation for her efforts in establishing an operation task organization that serves as the model for today’s Coast Guard multi-unit operation.
In response to the renewed threats of a mass exodus from Haiti, Operation Able Manner began in January 1993, with large numbers of Coast Guard and U.S. Navy ships and aircraft deploying to the Caribbean. The Dallas assumed command of this flotilla on three separate patrols in 1993, earning her yet another Coast Guard Unit Commendation.
The Dallas spent the summer of 1994 representing the Coast Guard of France at the 50th D-Day invasion anniversary. During those festivities, the Dallas steamed with the reenactment fleet to commemorate the event.
Soon after the D-Day celebration, the Dallas was called upon to be the flagship for the Operation Able Vigil in response to another mass exodus from Cuba. Able Vigil was the largest Coast Guard commanded, but multi-service, operation since the 1940s.
During the summer of 1995, the Dallas operated with the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. Among her many assignments, Dallas worked with the USS Theodore Roosevelt Battle Group in support of Operation Deny Flight off the coast of Yugoslavia. The Dallas’s crew conducted nation-building training and professional exchange in various countries in the Mediterranean, the Adriatic Sea, and the Black Sea. The Dallas worked with the navies, coast guards, and maritime agencies of Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Tunisia, Slovenia, Albania, and Italy. This marked the first time that a U.S. Coast Guard cutter operated with the U.S. Sixth Fleet and also entered the Black Sea. Dallas earned the Armed Forces Service Medal for her contributions to Operations Deny Flight, Maritime Monitor, and Sharp Guard.
During 1997 and 1998, the Dallas served as the flagship for Operations Frontier Shield and Frontier Lance, the largest interagency, international counter-narcotic operations in the Caribbean to date.
In the summer of 1999, the Dallas was again assigned to the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and Black Seas to support allied forces during the conflict in Kosovo. While en route, the conflict ended, but the Dallas was ordered to remain in theater to conduct training and professional exchanges with US Naval units and foreign naval forces. The Dallas became the first Coast Guard cutter to enter the ports of Haifa, Israel, and Antalya, Turkey, and she conducted training exercises with the Ukrainian Navy, Turkish Coast Guard, Georgian Navy, and the armed forces of Malta.
During the entire 1990-2000 decade Dallas held the Commander of the Atlantic Area’s Operational Readiness Award for sustained excellence in all Coast Guard warfare mission areas.
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on New York and Virginia, the Dallas was deployed as part of Operation Noble Eagle off the coast of the southeastern United States. Her mission was to interrogate and board vessels entering US waterways. This marked a change in the Coast Guard’s operations as an emphasis on homeland security preceded the Dallas’s previous missions of drug interdiction and operations with the U.S. Navy overseas.
During the summer of 2002, the Dallas took part in a new approach to maritime drug interdiction. Deployed alongside the USCGC Gallatin (WHEC-721), the only other 378-foot cutter on the East Coast, the Dallas took part in Operation New Frontier. Operation New Frontier utilizes armed helicopters from the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) to stop small high-speed vessel ("go-fasts") before they can reach their destination.
In 2003, the Dallas was assigned to the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Dallas initially provided armed escorts through the Straits of Gibraltar and conducted boardings of vessels leaving the Suez Canal, as the Iraqis fled. The Dallas made port calls in Rota Spain, Split Croatia, Sicily, and Madeira Portugal.
In August 2008, the Dallas was sent to Georgia's shoreline on the Black Sea in support of Operation Assured Delivery in order to bring humanitarian supplies to those affected by the South Ossetia war . With Georgia's main naval base at Poti effectively under Russian control, the Dallas instead docked at Batumi, as did the USS McFaul and 9 other NATO ships.
The Dallas’s awards include: two Joint Meritorious Unit Awards, three Coast Guard Unit Commendations, a Navy Unit Commendation (as part of the Battle Force 6th Fleet Task Force 60 for Operation Iraqi Freedom), two Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Commendations, a Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Armed Forces Service Medal, three Humanitarian Service Medals, numerous Coast Guard Special Operations Service Ribbons, the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation, the Republic of Vietnam Civil Actions Unit Citation, and the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal.
The Philippine Navy officially confirmed the Joint Visual Inspection (JVI) by its officials led by Rear Admiral Orwen Cortez of South Carolina-based Hamilton class cutter USCGC Dallas (WHEC-716) from October 31 to November 5, 2011. The ship was transferred as an excess defense article through the Foreign Assistance Act via a "hot transfer" in May 2012.
It was said that the Philippine Navy will be naming it after a World War II Hero, Ramon Alcaraz during the commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of Fall of Corregidor.
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