She was built by Peterson Shipbuilders, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Dextrous is homeported in Bahrain and is part of the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Dextrous was featured in a front-page article in the 31 July 2006 edition of DefenceNews that pointed out that USS Ardent (MCM-12) and Dextrous were suffering from equipment failures that made them unable to perform their role.