On 8 June 1982, the frigate steamed out of Charleston on her way across the Atlantic. In spite of damage she suffered in a collision with support ship during an underway refueling operation, "Aylwin" continued on to Rota, Spain, and arrived there on the 19th. She entered the Mediterranean Sea on the 20th, but ended up in Marseilles, France, for shipyard repair. and joined a carrier task group built around carrier . The warship's arrival in the Mediterranean came in the immediate aftermath of the 6 June Israeli drive into Lebanon against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) based there. Serious though conditions in Lebanon were, "Aylwin" carried out normal 6th Fleet operations, including a freedom of navigation mission across Libyan president Muammar al-Gaddafi's "Line of Death" into the Gulf of Sidra, until the latter part of August. By then, American diplomat Philip Habib had defused the situation in Lebanon by extracting an agreement from the contending parties which called for the departure of the PLO from Lebanese soil. "Aylwin" served as escort for two of the merchant ships providing transportation. On 21 and 22 August, she convoyed the Greek ship from Beirut to Cyprus with the first contingent of PLO evacuees. Returning to Beirut on the 23d, the frigate shepherded thence through the Suez Canal to Aden, where the ships arrived on 29 August. Reversing course that same day, "Aylwin" stopped in Djibouti, Djibouti, to refuel and take on supplies before retransiting the canal and headed for a liberty call at Palma de Mallorca, Spain.