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 and/or operations:
“That’s just the trouble, Sam Houston—it’s always my move. And damnit, I sometimes can’t tell whether I’m making the right move or not. Now take this Vietnam mess. How in the hell can anyone know for sure what’s right and what’s wrong, Sam?”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“What war has always been is a puberty ceremony. It’s a very rough one, but you went away a boy and came back a man, maybe with an eye missing or whatever but godammit you were a man and people had to call you a man thereafter.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)