I joined the USS Fife (DD991) for a three week cruise out of San Diego in 1987. I served most of my time with the USMC except for this brief period on the destroyer. I had worked on a fishing boat before the Navy and really wanted to serve on a ship. There is something really cool about being "haze gray and underway" on an american warship and I am glad to be able to say I not only did that but I took the helm of that mother one wonderful night
The spruance class destroyers had twin props powered by 4 GE gas turbines and about 15 minutes of devastating whup ass. VLS Tomahawks in the bow (I want to say 7 rows of 7), which are nuke capable btw, fore and aft 5 inch, ASROCs, Sea Sparrow, Harpoon launchers, Mk 46 torps, 2 of the Phalanx systems, and a Seahawk helicopter. Fife was ASW so she had the towed array. Combat Systems looked like something out of star wars.
She was relatively new when I was on her, decommissioned in Feb 2003 iirc