ex-USS PAUL F FOSTER underway with an amphibious ship and a military service vessel named WHISKEY 36 nearby.
Paul F. Foster was decommissioned on 27 March 2003. In 2004, Paul F. Foster was designated to replace ex-Decatur as the Navy's Self Defense Test Ship, a role she assumed in 2005. In support of this new role, she is assigned to Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division. In 2008, Paul F. Foster was used in an episode of NCIS (Road Kill) portraying USS Rubicon, a ship about to be decommissioned. As of 2011, Paul F. Foster is the last surviving example of the Spruance Class.
On 8 April 2011, Wired.com reported that Paul F. Foster had successfully used the Maritime Laser Demonstrator for the first time in a sea-to-sea target test, sinking a small inflatable motorboat at a range of one mile in rough seas.
On 17 November 2011, Paul F. Foster demonstrated the use of shipboard alternative fuel, while underway in the Pacific Ocean on a 50–50 blend of an algae-derived, hydro-processed algal oil and petroleum F-76. The ship arrived Thursday morning to the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Port Hueneme in Southern California after traveling for 17 hours on a maiden trip from San Diego. http://www.seaforces.org/usnships/dd/DD-964-USS-Paul-F-Foster.htm