Miscellaneous Deployments
She arrived back in Panama City in August and resumed services to the Naval Mine Defense Laboratory. Following 14 months of normal operations in the Gulf of Mexico, Vital headed south for a four-month assignment in the West Indies which she concluded at Panama City, Florida on 9 February 1964.
Upon the conclusion of that Caribbean deployment, Vital settled down to a routine of operations out of Panama City broken only by three Mediterranean deployments and an ascent of the Mississippi River in May 1967 to participate in the Cotton Carnival at Memphis, Tennessee. On 1 January 1971, Vital received word that her home port had changed back to Charleston. She arrived there on the 27th and, for the next 20 months, operated from that base as a unit of the Atlantic Fleet Mine Force.
Read more about this topic: USS Vital (MSO-474)