"Agerholm" spent most of 1968 on training cruises for United States Naval Academy and ROTC midshipmen. In May, she participated in tests conducted off San Clemente Island by the China Lake Naval Weapons Testing Center, and fired the new rocket-assisted projectile (RAP). Two days before the year was out, "Agerholm" sailed from San Diego on her 16th WestPac cruise. During the transit to the Gulf of Tonkin via Pearl Harbor and Subic Bay, the destroyer escorted the aircraft carrier , and subsequently served as plane guard for that carrier's first combat launch from "Yankee Station" during the new year 1969.