USS Coontz, a 4150-ton Farragut class guided missile frigate, was built at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Washington. She was commissioned in July 1960 and soon joined the Pacific Fleet. Just over a year later, Coontz crossed the Pacific to begin the first of seven tours with the Seventh Fleet. These included active participation in the Vietnam conflict during 1965-70.

Decommissioned in February 1971 for an extensive anti-air warfare modernization, Coontz returned to active service in March 1972 as part of the Atlantic Fleet. During the next seventeen years, she regularly visited the Mediterranean Sea, Northern Europe and Latin America. She was redesignated a guided missile destroyer in July 1975, receiving in the process the new hull number DDG-40.

Coontz operated with the multi-national Standing Naval Forces Atlantic in 1976 and again in 1978-79. In the early and mid-1980s, she cruised in the Black Sea and participated in the Grenada operation. The destroyer served in the Persian Gulf in 1987, a time of great tension in the area during the war between Iraq and Iran. USS Coontz was taken out of service in October 1989. She was sold for scrapping in April 1994, but had to be repossessed in October 1996. The ship was sold again in February 1999.

USS Coontz was named in honor of the Navy's second Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Robert E. Coontz (1864-1935).