SAN DIEGO - The guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones arrived in San Diego Tuesday following a seven-month deployment to the Persian Gulf.
Family and friends greeted sailors from the John Paul Jones when the ship arrived at Naval Base San Diego.
During the deployment, the 300-member crew conducted security operations in the Gulf and took part in tracking and data collection for ballistic missile defense launches, according to the Navy.
The John Paul Jones also defended Iraqi oil terminal infrastructure in a joint effort with the U.S. Coast Guard, Iraqi Navy, Britain's Royal Navy and other coalition forces.
The John Paul Jones, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer and the first ship of the class homeported on the West Coast, is named after the most celebrated American naval officer of the Revolutionary War. The Navy says his standards of professionalism should be emulated by American sailors to this day.
Ships of the Arleigh Burke Class can conduct both offensive and defensive operations using Tomahawk and Harpoon cruise missiles, standard missiles and other weapons systems. The class is also the first whose ships are fitted with an integrated chemical, biological and radiological defense system.
The keel of the John Paul Jones was laid in August 1990, and the vessel was launched a year later. It was commissioned in December 1993.
Also scheduled to arrive today in San Diego was the USS Dewey, the newest destroyer in the Arleigh Burke class. Built in Mississippi, the Dewey will be homeported in San Diego after it is commissioned in Orange County at a ceremony at Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station on March 6.
