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)
“Above all, Vietnam was a war that asked everything of a few and nothing of most in America.”
—Myra MacPherson, U.S. author. Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation, epilogue (1984)
“How many people in the United States do you think will be willing to go to war to free Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania?”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)