Departing Bremerton on 4 January 1974, the warship sailed south to her new home port of San Diego, arriving there on the 18th after a brief stay at Long Beach. With the end of American participation in the Vietnam war following the previous year's cease-fire agreement, the Navy concentrated on improving overall operational readiness, a routine markedly different from earlier training which had focused on preparing warships for combat duty off Vietnam. "Berkeley", therefore, spent the next five months taking part in a series of fleet-wide inspections and maintenance programs. The guided-missile destroyer finally got underway to deploy on 19 June, steaming across the Pacific and arriving in Subic Bay on 10 July.