[1] Following shakedown off Guantanamo Bay in September, Sampson tested and evaluated the Tartar missile system off Puerto Rico.

In 1966, Sampson conducted gunnery exercises and escort duties near Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; then, in March, she deployed to the Mediterranean for extensive operations with the 6th Fleet.

[2] Leaving the 6th Fleet at the end of August 1967, Sampson steamed back to the United States, and soon shifted to her new home port of Charleston, South Carolina.

She spent the month of October cruising first with USS John F. Kennedy, then with Saratoga, during the latest Levantine crisis.

On 9 April, following exercises and type training, Sampson steamed out of Charleston, passed Fort Sumter, and headed for the Mediterranean.

She was in Charleston during the period 9 July to 18 August, at which time Sampson stood out for her new home port, Athens, Greece.

[1] In 1973 she was dispatched to and docked in Tunis, Tunisia where she provided communication link for Helos of USS Forrestal for the Medjerda River flood.

During 1973 she visited Barcelona, Spain, Palma de Majorca, Naples Italy, Mikonos, Crete, Istanbul, Turkey, and Villa France.

After transiting the Suez canal and Red Sea, the Sampson shadowed the Soviet carrier Minsk & cruiser Tashkent in the Indian Ocean, and made port calls in Djibouti, and in Karachi.

[citation needed] On 7 August 1990 the Sampson deployed with the USS Saratoga battle group in support of Desert Shield/Storm.

Once there the Sampson performed the final Adams class guided missile destroyer deployment as a unit of the Maritime Interception Force, conducting the first boarding and search of a merchant on 28 AUG 1990, during OPERATION DESERT SHIELD and the first diversion of a ship with prohibited cargo.

[3] Sampson was decommissioned on 24 June 1991 exactly 30 years after commissioning, stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 20 November 1992 and sold for scrap on 25 July 1995.