up station off Cuba in October 1962. At the successful conclusion of that operation, she resumed normal duty out of Mayport, Florida. That employment—including frequent duty as school ship for the Fleet Sonar School—continued through 1963 and into 1964. In June and July 1964, the destroyer made a brief deployment to the Mediterranean for a midshipman cruise. Upon her return to the western hemisphere, she resumed normal duty out of Mayport. In the spring of 1965, political unrest in the Dominican Republic took her to the waters around that troubled island. Upon concluding that assignment, the destroyer returned to Mayport and resumed operations out of that port. In October, she embarked upon another deployment in the Mediterranean. After a routine tour of duty with the 6th Fleet in the "middle sea," Allen M. Sumner returned to Mayport on 8 March 1966 and began 11 months of operations out of her home port which included duty as a support ship for the Gemini 10 space shot in July. Vietnam [[File:QH-50 hovering DD-692.jpg|thumb|A QH-50 DASH drone hovering over Allen M. Sumner'''s flight deck, 1969.]] On 7 February 1967, the destroyer departed Mayport on her way to her first and only deployment to the Vietnam war zone. Steaming via the Panama Canal and Hawaii, she arrived in Yokosuka, Japan, on 14 March. Four days later, she got underway for the coast of Vietnam. On her first tour in the Gulf of Tonkin, Allen M. Sumner served as "shotgun" (screening ship) for while the nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser served on positive identification radar advisory zone duty in the gulf. She was relieved of that assignment on 5 April to participate in Operation Seadragon, the interdiction of communist waterborne logistics operations. That assignment lasted until 11 April, when she joined the screen of the aircraft carrier for a voyage to Sasebo, Japan. She remained at Sasebo from 15 to 22 April before heading back to the Gulf of Tonkin again in company with Hancock. Upon her return to Vietnamese waters, Allen M. Sumner moved inshore with the Australian cruiser to resume "Sea-dragon" duty and, later, to provide shore bombardment support for marines engaged in Operation Beau Charger, a combined waterborne and airborne amphibious assault conducted near the demilitarized zone late in May. At the end of May, she rejoined the fast carriers on Yankee Station and screened them until 10 June when she resumed "Seadragon"