[3] The guided-missile frigate was so engaged when United States military forces invaded the small Caribbean island nation of Grenada on 25 October.

Aubrey Fitch interrupted refresher training to conduct patrols in defense of the base at Guantánamo Bay against possible hostile action by Cuba as a result of the conflict in Grenada.

Demands attendant to the continuing American presence in Grenada, however, overtook the experiment and sent Aubrey Fitch and her two consorts south to the tiny republic.

On 22 June, the guided missile frigate put to sea to become a unit of NATO's Standing Naval Force, Atlantic, based at Plymouth, England.

After concluding holiday leave and upkeep at Mayport during the first half of January, she returned to sea for the usual training exercises, equipment operation certifications, and ASW helicopter landing qualifications.

In June, Aubrey Fitch began providing escort and plane guard services for America and Saratoga when the carriers put to sea to conduct landing qualifications.

She concluded her restricted availability with sea trials on 5 and 6 December and, after a brief round trip to Charleston and back, settled into the usual year-end holiday routine.

On 10 February, Aubrey Fitch resumed training operations out of Mayport, and she continued so employed until the beginning of April at which time the warship began preparations to deploy to the Persian Gulf.

During a 1988 deployment to the Persian Gulf, the frigate participated in Operation Earnest Will, during which she conducted escort missions to protect Kuwaiti merchant tankers from attack during the Iran–Iraq War.

[3] In August 1991, following the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Army, the frigate surged to the Middle East to participate in Maritime Interception Operations (MIO) in the northern Red Sea.

Designed to cut the flow of supplies and equipment to Iraq in support of United Nations' economic sanctions, Aubrey Fitch conducted 243 merchant ship boardings and inspected over 3 million tons of cargo.

[3] Aubrey Fitch spent March through July 1995 touring Western Europe, including Bermuda; Brest, France; Rota, Barcelona and Ibiza, Spain; Casablanca, Morocco; Gibraltar, Portsmouth & Liverpool, UK; Lisbon, Portugal; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Derry & Portrush, Northern Ireland and Rosyth, Scotland.

From September 1996 to March 1997, Aubrey Fitch conducted her last operational deployment as part of Standing Naval Force Atlantic, during which she visited fourteen ports ranging between Gdynia, Poland west to Faslane, Scotland and south to Lisbon, Portugal.