USS Turner Joy

Turner Joy’s distinctive service included a double-duty role as flagship for Destroyer Squadron 13 and Destroyer Division 131 with several tours in the Pacific. She also stood air-sea rescue duty near the Marianas Islands for President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s visit to several Asian nations. In terms of history, this vessel is most remembered for her participation in the Gulf of Tonkin incident which [began] the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. – http://www.ussturnerjoy.org

It is said that this destroyer shot the first and the last shots fired in the Vietnam War. She was built in Seattle in 1957, launched in 1958, decommissioned in 1982, and donated to the Bremerton Historic Ships Association in 1990 where she now sits in Bremerton, Washington as a museum. $12 gets you a self guided tour of the deck and multiple floors below deck, and as you can see I went ahead with the $12 tour.

A tour of a Navy ship fit nicely with my current reading of Lone Survivor (which I read in two nights); the story of the Navy SEALs that went on a reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan when all hell broke loose. Only one made it out alive. A book well worth reading, and one that brought tears to my eyes numerous times and made me laugh just as many.