Vietnam War Operations
During her 1955 tour she took part in the evacuation of the Tachen Islands from 6 to 14 February, and the Vietnam evacuation "Operation Passage to Freedom" of 6 to 15 March. From February to August 1958, she joined in Operation Hardtack I at Bikini Atoll. The intervals between deployments have found her operating locally from Long Beach, California.
The Cacapon was the site of the 1968 strangulation of Ensign Andrew Muns. He was murdered after uncovering a theft of $8,600 from the ship's safe by Michael LeBrun. The Navy initially branded Ensign Muns the thief and accused him of deserting with the stolen cash. At the insistence of the Muns' family, the case was reopened by NCIS in 1998 and a subsequent cold case investigation led to Michael LeBrun. After a lengthy interrogation, LeBrun confessed to the murder and to disposing of the body by throwing Ensign Muns into one of the oiler's massive fuel tanks. The body was never recovered. After thirty years marked as a dishonorable deserter, Ensign Muns was given an honorable ceremonial burial in Arlington Cemetery.
Read more about this topic: USS Cacapon (AO-52)
Famous quotes containing the words vietnam war, vietnam, war and/or operations:
“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)
“I was proud of the youths who opposed the war in Vietnam because they were my babies.”
—Benjamin Spock (b. 1903)
“Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother’s nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war against Protestant ascendancy. ...The teachings of the Church did not interest her, except as they were a rebuke to others ...”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)