USS Benjamin Stoddert (DDG-22) - 1990s

1990s

Toward the end of August, Benjamin Stoddert started preparing for a phased maintenance availability, which she began on 12 September in the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. During the ensuing five months, the warship received extensive equipment upgrades and regularly scheduled maintenance work on her propulsion plant. Pronounced ready for duty on 1 March, the warship conducted another Coast Guard law enforcement operation in Hawaiian waters. Then, on 16 April, she joined the familiar multinational exercise "RIMPAC 90". She conducted ASW and anti-surface ship exercises during this period, highlighted by a successful Standard missile shot in early May.

Back in Pearl Harbor on 12 May, Benjamin Stoddert did not leave Hawaii until 18 June when she set out for Central America and another Coast Guard law enforcement deployment. The warship began patrol operations off Baja California on the 27th and remained there — save for a single port visit to San Diego — through 11 August. After rendezvousing with Badger (FF-1071) and Kawishiwi (AO-146), the guided-missile destroyer sailed south for a drug interdiction patrol off Panama. These operations continued until 11 September, when the warship put into Rodman, Panama — the first landfall for the crew after 47 days at sea. Departing Panama on the 14th, the guided-missile destroyer returned to her patrol station, remaining there until 29 September when she was relieved by Waddell. Instead of sailing northwest for home, however, Stoddert passed through the Panama Canal on 3 October, entered the Caribbean Sea — the first and only arm of the Atlantic Ocean to wash her hull — and pulled into Willemstad, Curaçao, on the 6th. After a five-day port visit, she turned west for her transit home, arriving in Pearl Harbor on 29 October. The guided-missile destroyer spent the rest of the year in port undergoing routine inspections and maintenance.

Benjamin Stoddert began her last year in service with a surface warfare exercise in late January 1991, and her crew remained busy with training through the end of March. Departing Hawaii on 3 April, the warship cruised in southern California waters for the next five weeks, conducting antisubmarine warfare (ASW) drills and naval gunfire practice off San Clemente in addition to readiness training with the Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) battle group. She returned to Pearl Harbor on 15 May.

Following a series of inspections in June, the warship remained in port — save for a few days of local operations — as the crew prepared her for inactivation. On 3 September, the guided-missile destroyer began pre-inactivation procedures and unloaded all her fuel and ammunition. Benjamin Stoddert was decommissioned at Pearl Harbor on 20 December 1991, and her name was struck from the Navy list on 20 November 1992. On 7 September 1995, she was transferred to the Maritime Administration and was berthed with its National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, Calif., to await disposal. On 3 February 2001, while under to tow to Brownsville, Texas, for scrapping, the old guided missile destroyer took on water and sank in the Pacific.