USS Jouett (CG-29)

USS Jouett (CG-29): Seven Stars in Vietnam

Commissioned on 3 December 1966, USS Jouett was a Belknap-class guided missile cruiser that earned seven battle stars for Vietnam service and one for the Gulf War, eight total, the highest combined total in the Belknap class. Named for Commodore James Jouett, who commanded the gunboats at the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864 under Admiral Farragut and helped force the passage past Fort Morgan, she carried a name from the Civil War's defining naval campaign into the Cold War missile era.

Seven Vietnam battle stars represent some of the most sustained operational service of any ship in the Belknap class. Jouett's crews rotated through repeated deployments to the Western Pacific and Gulf of Tonkin through the full arc of American Vietnam involvement, from the escalation of the mid-1960s through the final American naval operations of 1972 and 1973. Carrier task force screening, air defense coverage, surface presence: the steady, unglamorous work that kept the carriers flying and the mission sustained.

Her Gulf War service nearly three decades after commissioning demonstrated the durability of the Belknap design. In 1990 and 1991 Jouett operated in the Persian Gulf as part of the coalition naval forces assembled for Desert Shield and Desert Storm, her Cold War systems remaining capable in a post-Cold War combat environment and earning her final battle star in the conflict that ended the era she was built for.

Jouett was decommissioned on 4 February 1995. Eight battle stars across Vietnam and the Gulf War. Tactically Acquired's USS Jouett (CG-29) collection honors the Belknap-class record-holder and the sailors who kept her at sea through 28 years of American naval operations.