The USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25/CGN-25) was a nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser, the first nuclear-powered destroyer-type ship called a "frigate" at the time, and the fourth Navy ship to bear the name. The ship was laid down in 1959, launched in 1961, and commissioned a year later. Her original hull classification symbol was DLGN (nuclear-powered guided missile destroyer leader), but it was re-designated as a guided missile cruiser of the Bainbridge-class destroyers in 1975. The destroyer served over 30 years in the Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, and Middle East. She sailed to the Western Pacific for the first of her eleven Seventh Fleet cruises in 1965. She screened aircraft carriers, was a radar-picket ship, and performed search and rescue missions off Vietnam. The vessel underwent shipyard overhaul and her first nuclear refueling between 1967 and 1968, and accomplished her subsequent five Far Eastern deployments after that. She won the Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Award In 1982 and rejoined the U.S. Atlantic Fleet before decommissioning in 1996. Those veterans who served on the USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25/CGN-25) should undergo annual medical examinations to ensure that the inhaled asbestos fibers have not affected their lungs.
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