CVA-66, the Naval designation for the USS America, was one of three Kitty Hawk-class supercarriers built for the United States Navy in the 1960s, one of three US Navy ships to bare that name. Commissioned in 1965, the aircraft carrier spent most of her career in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, but made three Pacific deployments, in 1968, 1970 and 1972, serving in the Vietnam War. She also served in the Persian Gulf War's operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, launching over 3000 combat sorties with no loss of aircraft. The ship undertook deployments to the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean during the following years. She was decommissioned in 1996. The other USS America ships are the USS America (LHA-6), an amphibious assault ship commissioned in 2014, and the original USS America, a 74-gun man-of-war laid down in 1777, but who never served.