The warships arrived in Congolese waters on 9 September and commenced a series of multinational minesweeping exercises involving American, Belgian, and Portuguese units. The exercises ended on 21 September, and "Valor" and her division mates headed back to Ostend where they arrived on 17 October. "Valor" continued to operate locally out of Ostend, with the Belgian minesweeper division, until 15 January 1960 when she returned to United States Navy control and headed, via Rota, Spain, back to the United States. The minesweeper arrived back in Panama City on 14 February 1960. Over the next eight years, "Valor" continued to operate out of Panama City in support of the mine countermeasures development program of the Navy Mine Defense Laboratory. However, that routine was broken frequently, on three occasions by six-month deployments to the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean, but more often by overhauls, refresher training, and exercises in the West Indies. Her association with the Mine Defense Laboratory ended on 1 March 1968 when she received orders transferring her to MinDiv 44 and reassigning her to Charleston as her home base. The ship operated from that port for the remaining two years of her Navy career. During that period, "Valor" made one more deployment to the Mediterranean between April and August 1968. Early in October 1969 the minesweeper began a pre-rehabilitation overhaul at Charleston in preparation for extensive modifications to update her equipment. She never finished those modifications, for early in 1970 a board of inspection and survey found her to be "beyond economical repair" and recommended that she be disposed of. She was decommissioned sometime in July 1970 and her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 February 1971. On 30 August 1971, she was sold to Mr. Charles Gural of Rahway, New Jersey for $1,700.00 for scrapping.