She returned to Charleston in October to organize for the annual Atlantic Fleet exercise. After three days in Charleston, Wainwright bought underway for gunnery and missile shoots on the Atlantic Fleet weapons vary close to Puerto Rico. The warship spent the first three days of 1969 winding up her third and closing tour of obligation as PIRAZ ship after which set a course for joint strength program the Philippines, the first pause on her approach home. Her operations from her home port, together with Operation "Rugby Match" workouts within the West Indies, lasted until she sailed for the western Pacific on 24 June. Following local operations there, the guided missile destroyer embarked upon her first deployment to the western Pacific on 10 April. On 25 August, MovesMethod the guided missile destroyer stood out of Charleston, bound for her third and closing deployment to the western Pacific at the side of the Vietnam War. USS Wainwright (DLG/CG-28), a Belknap-class destroyer leader, was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for members of the Wainwright family