On 6 January 1973, Aylwin got underway for antisubmarine warfare (ASW) operations to be held in the eastern Mediterranean in conjunction with Task Force (TF) 60.

She arrived at Alanya, Turkey, on 28 February and then stopped at Athens; La Maddalena, Italy; Alicante, Barcelona, and Valencia, Spain; Tunis, Tunisia; Villefranche, Cannes, and Toulon, France; and Gibraltar.

She made brief stops at Djibouti, Afars and Issas; Muscat, Oman; Bahrain; Bandar Abbas, Iran; and Massawa, and Asab, Ethiopia.

She retraced her earlier course and made stops at Luanda, Angola, Recife, Brazil, and Roosevelt Roads before reaching Norfolk on 13 December.

With the repairs completed, Aylwin set sail for Toulon, France, on 2 November to join NATO forces in Exercise "Isle d'Or."

She then sailed to the ports of Piraeus, Greece; Souda Bay; Bodrum, Turkey; Catania, Sicily; Valencia, Spain; Palma, Majorca; and Gaeta and Genoa, Italy.

Aylwin briefly stopped once again at Rota on 17 April, then left the Mediterranean, bound for Norfolk where she spent May and early June in leave and upkeep.

Aylwin put to sea on 3 January 1978 to provide submarines Sand Lance (SSN-660) and Sturgeon (SSN-637) services as a target as they sharpened their hunting skills.

The next day, she was directed to proceed to the Key West, Florida, area to conduct surveillance operations and relieve destroyer Robert A. Owens (DD-827).

A series of ASW exercises followed; and, on 29 April, the frigate moored alongside tender Howard W. Gilmore (AS-16) at La Maddalena, Sardinia, for an availability.

Aylwin steamed eastward and then north around the Arabian peninsula to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, where she participated in an exercise with naval forces from Oman.

That respite ended abruptly on 4 November when she got underway only two hours after learning that militant Iranian students had stormed into the United States embassy in Tehran and made captives of American diplomatic and military personnel.

She paused at Djibouti to refuel, then sailed north, transited the Suez Canal, and continued across the Mediterranean to Rota, Spain, where she arrived on 23 December.

The repairs – which included major work to her main propulsion plant, a period in drydock, and many lesser modifications – lasted a year almost exactly.

In spite of damage she suffered in a collision with support ship Seattle (AOE-3) during an underway refueling operation, Aylwin continued on to Rota, Spain, and arrived there on the 19th.

The warship's arrival in the Mediterranean came in the immediate aftermath of the 6 June Israeli drive into Lebanon against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) based there.

Serious though conditions in Lebanon were, Aylwin carried out normal 6th Fleet operations, including a freedom of navigation mission across Libyan president Muammar al-Gaddafi's "Line of Death" into the Gulf of Sidra, until the latter part of August.

By then, American diplomat Philip Habib had defused the situation in Lebanon by extracting an agreement from the contending parties which called for the departure of the PLO from Lebanese soil.

That event and the massacres it sparked prompted France, Italy, and the United States to reconstitute the multinational force that had overseen the PLO evacuation.

As a consequence, Aylwin broke off from Operation "Display Determination" and hurried east in company with carrier Independence (CV-62) to support the reentry of the multinational force into Lebanon.

Passing through the Straits, she conducted training evolutions with destroyer William V. Pratt (DDG-44) in the Black Sea before calling at Istanbul, Turkey, on 26 November.

Work on her hull and sonar dome took up the next five weeks after which Aylwin returned to Charleston to prepare for a deployment to northern European waters.

During the first three months of 1984, Aylwin left Charleston only once, as part of a task group built around Saratoga (CV-60) to conduct a readiness exercise during the first three weeks of February.

Between her return to Charleston from the readiness exercise late in February to the beginning of April, the warship concentrated on preparations for her impending assignment to the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea.

The frigate completed that mission in mid-May and spent a week in Charleston before heading back to the West Indies on 24 May on a midshipman training cruise.

Aylwin made a final European port visit at Aalborg, Denmark, from 21 to 27 October and then got underway to return to the United States.

The latest Libyan interlude ended on 27 April and, after another port call at Taormina, the frigate resumed more conventional 6th Fleet activities.

She spent eight weeks on a shakedown cruise in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba going through refresher training before participating in US law enforcement operations with the US Coast Guard in November 1988.

On 31 May 1989, Aylwin started her eighth major deployment and participated in eastern Mediterranean contingency operations in support of national objectives.

While entering Boston Harbor in heavy fog on the way to the shipyard, Aylwin collided with the tanker PLUTO at President Roads anchorage, suffering damage to her bow.