Nations Expeditionary Force (UNEF) be withdrawn from Egypt and the Gaza Strip posthaste. On the 20th, Egypt began patrolling Israel's coast. The destroyer's commanding officer subsequently reported: "As (William R.) Rush passed through the Canal we could feel an atmosphere of tension all about us; gun emplacements and troops were obvious on both sides of the Canal." William R. Rush moored alongside , where she spent the first few days of June undergoing a tender availability. However, the outbreak of full-scale war between Israel and her Arab neighbors on 5 June meant a hurried deployment seaward. The destroyer operated with 6th Fleet units as they conducted emergency contingency force operations until the 17th. She subsequently called at Istanbul from 21 to 26 June before serving as plane guard and picket for south of Crete. The destroyer later touched at Kavalla, Greece, and Sardinia and Rota, homeward bound. She finally reached Newport on 20 July, ending the eventful deployment. That autumn, William R. Rush operated off the coast of Florida, aiding the Fleet Sonar School in training officers and participating in ASW exercises. She then enjoyed a period of leave and upkeep at her home port to round out the year. Late in January 1968, William R. Rush operated out of Newport as school ship for the Naval Destroyer School. In mid-March, she continued her training-oriented activities when she embarked 32 prospective destroyer officers and sailed for the Caribbean in company with and . During that cruise, she visited St. Croix, Virgin Islands, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Soon after the ship returned to her home port, she shifted to the Boston Naval Shipyard for a four-month overhaul. 1970–1978 Over the next 11 years, William R. Rush conducted two more Mediterranean deployments, in early 1969 and from the autumn of 1970 to the spring of 1971, in between which she operated, as before, off the eastern seaboard and into the Caribbean. Ports visited with the 6th Fleet included Rota and Barcelona, Spain; Piraeus, Greece; Venice, Genoa and San Remo, Italy; Sfax, Tunisia; and Valletta, Malta. A social highlight of the 1969 deployment was when the officers and men of the ship were hosted royally on three separate occasions by Contessa Catherine Rush Visconti-Prasca—the daughter of the ship's William R. Rush—at her villa. During that deployment, the ship participated in the usual slate of maneuvers and exercises including stints plane-guarding for and