USS Stout (DDG-55)

USS Stout (DDG-55) is the sixth Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer. Built by Ingalls Shipbuilding, she was commissioned on 13 August 1994 and she is currently home-ported in Naval Station Norfolk.

Namesake
Stout was named for Rear Admiral Herald F. Stout (1903–1987), who distinguished himself as the Commanding Officer of the destroyer USS Claxton during World War II. Then a Commander, Stout aided his task force in sinking five heavily armed, enemy warships to establish a beachhead on Bougainville Island.

Honors and awards
On 16 February 2007, Stout was awarded the 2006 Battle "E".

In April 2008, the ship comprehensively failed its Board of Inspection and Survey examination and was declared "unfit for sustained combat operations." . The ship has since passed 13 of 13 rigorous unit level training inspections. Stout deployed in March 2009 on routine security operations in the Sixth Fleet OPAREA. On 15 July 2009, Fox News Channel reported Stout was in the Black Sea cooperating with Georgian forces in training exercises.

Relief of Commanding Officer and Command Master Chief
On 1 March 2011 while on deployment to the Mediterranean Sea in support of the crisis in Libya, Commander Nathan Borchers, Command Master Chief Susan Bruce-Ross, six other chiefs, one junior officer, and one petty officer of USS Stout were relieved by the Commander Sixth Fleet. The cited cause was a “pervasive pattern of unprofessional behavior” among the ship's crew including “fraternization, orders violations and disregard for naval standards of conduct and behavior which contributed to poor crew morale and a hostile command climate.”  The investigation found that a "gang" of five chiefs had bullied crew members, actively impeded communication among the ship's command channels, and forced crewmembers to work around the gang in order to get work accomplished.

Operation Odyssey Dawn
On 19 March 2011, in conjunction with other US Navy ships, the destroyer launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libyan air defenses as part of Operation Odyssey Dawn.

Syrian civil war
On 28 August 2013, the U.S. Navy announced that a fifth Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the Stout, was en route to join the other four Burke-class destroyers deployed in the eastern Mediterrranean Sea amid allegations that the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons during the ongoing Syrian civil war, including the gas attacks that occurred on 21 August 2013.