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Offline DemolitionMan

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One of Navy's Oldest Ships Returns From Unusual Final Deployment
« on: October 01, 2017, 08:54:45 am »
by Hope Hodge Seck

A ship that was given a five-year reprieve from retirement in order to test out a new concept for the Navy finally returned home today for the last time.

The USS Ponce, born an Austin-class amphibious transport dock and remade into an afloat forward staging base in 2012, pulled into homeport in Norfolk, Virginia, today, ending a five-year deployment to the Middle East. The ship is set to be retired after 46 years in service later this year.

The Ponce, one of the oldest ships in the entire Navy fleet, had a full career before being tapped for a new mission. She was tasked with patrolling off the shore of Beirut, Lebanon in early 1984, months after a terrorist bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983 killed 241 U.S. troops and 58 French peacekeepers.

The ship supported Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm from the Mediterranean during a 1991 deployment, and in 2003 was tasked with carrying Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to support the invasion of Iraq.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/09/27/one-navys-oldest-ships-returns-unusual-final-deployment.html
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Offline Suppressed

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Re: One of Navy's Oldest Ships Returns From Unusual Final Deployment
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2017, 08:01:34 pm »
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