On the night of 2 December, the ship was anchored at Bari, Italy, when a massive air raid of 105 Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 bombers attacked the port.

When he reached land, he disregarded his wounds in order to help pull survivors out of the oil-covered and flaming waters and to get them safely into a nearby bomb shelter.

Vesole deployed in northern European waters from January to June 1969 as a participant in Standing Naval Force Atlantic (STANAVFORLANT), a NATO multinational squadron under a Dutch Commodore and Canadian Chief of Staff.

En route from Charleston, Vesole made port/refueling visits to Bridgetown, Barbados; Monrovia, Liberia; Luanda, Angola; and Lourenco Marques, Mozambique.

Vesole visited Mombasa, Kenya; Diego Suarez, Madagascar; Djibouti, then a French overseas territory; Asmara, then-Ethiopia; Bahrain; Bandar Abbas, Iran; Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; Karachi, Pakistan; Cochin, India; Colombo, then-Ceylon; Malé, Republic of the Maldives; and Victoria, Seychelles.

Vesole was decommissioned at Charleston, South Carolina, and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 December 1976 and sunk as a target off Puerto Rico on 14 April 1983.