This is for John Sligh or anyone else who was there that night and might remember this event. John, I just check out this site for the first time in months and saw your reply ? thank you. Would you happen to know the date that this incident took place? I think it was June or July 1976 but it might have been as late as August before we moved to the Western Med and arrived in Palma, Mallorca, Spain. As I?m sure you remember that cruise was pretty hectic and not a lot of port calls. We were sortied out of Taranto and Naples and I think also Bari, Italy. We were called upon to evacuate our citizens, diplomats and other nationals from Beriut where there was a lot of fighting going on involving Arab Christians and Muslims. I know the US was concerned that our people might be fired upon and our troops might get caught up in the fighting during the course of the evacuation. As it turned out I don?t remember there being any trouble at all during the evacuation. I do remember that there was an air show that was put on later during the cruise for some of the foreign brass when we were out to sea and they were on board. An F-14 came flying in low from the direction of our stern close off of our port side and went into a tight 360 degree turn about midships then as it came out of the turn it fired it?s afterburners and took off almost straight up into the sky ?.. What an aircraft the F-14 was !!! At any rate I am writing my memoirs about my three Navy deployments and would like to include the correct dates for these events, so if you know it would be much appreciated in your reply. Oh, as I?m sure you already know it was Daniel McCormick not James as I had erroneously written in my first entry who was the Captain of the America on the bridge that night.