We were at Team Spirit '87 and Earnest Will with you.
Having our fuel already paid for (USS Long Beach, CGN9) gave us extra deployments when someone else couldn’t go.
Apologies for not remembering 30 years later, but was either of those the double fleet of the Ranger & New Jersey (I think that was 1986) or the Ranger plowing through the monsoon and get to port and pissing off all the tin-can ships in the fleet as they were tossed around like tin cans?
I recall Team Spirit (exercises with Japan, South Korea, Australia & maybe others) was just you, us, and the Louis B. Puller as your plane guard. Port visit at Sasebo, Japan and Pusan, Korea.
New Jersey was part of the Arabian Sea trip, but when we got there we were stationed closer in as AAW control or something. We did share the long at-sea period (almost 2 beer days).
Maybe the 121 days at sea I mentioned earlier. Argh, lucky us to set the record to that point. I mostly remember Japan was too expensive to enjoy but Korea was a lot of fun.
Tried to join the US Army out of high school, but during the physical the doctor didn’t like my back and disqualified me.
Spent some time in the US Army Reserve in the 1980s. Turned out to be a pretty lame excuse for a soldier. Then at one point they adjusted staffing and chose to move me to IRR (non-drilling reserve) early and I couldn’t blame them.