Navy to rename USNS Harvey Milk honoring gay rights activist
June 3 (UPI) -- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the U.S. Navy to rename one of its ships, honoring the late gay rights activist Harvey Milk, as Pride month gets underway.
The Office of the Secretary of the Navy was instructed to rename the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk, according to a memorandum reviewed by military.com and confirmed by ABC News and CBS News. A defense official confirmed the timing of the announcement during Pride month was intentional.
According to the memo, the reason for renaming the ship is to provide "alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture."
While a new name for the ship was not revealed, Hegseth and Navy Secretary John Phelan are expected to announce the ship's new moniker aboard the Navy's oldest commissioned ship, the USS Constitution, on June 13, according to the memo.
The USNS Harvey Milk was the first Navy ship to be named after an openly gay person. The ship is a John Lewis-class oiler, a group of ships named after prominent civil rights leaders. It was officially named in 2016 at a ceremony in San Francisco, before it was built, and was launched from San Diego Bay in November 2021.
Milk served as a lieutenant in the Navy during the Korean War. He received an other-than-honorable discharge and resigned, instead of facing a court martial over his homosexuality.
Milk became the first openly gay person in the country to be elected to public office when he won a San Francisco supervisor seat in 1977. Milk and Mayor George Moscone were both assassinated a year later. Milk became a San Francisco and LGBTQ icon, and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
The renaming of USNS Harvey Milk would not be the first time the Navy has renamed a ship. In 2023, a Congressionally mandated commission changed the names of two vessels as they removed Confederate ties throughout the military. The USS Chancellorsville was changed to USS Robert Smalls and the research ship USNS Maury became USNS Marie Tharp.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed Tuesday that changes were underway for several other ships.
"Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the commander-in-chief's priorities, our nation's history and the warrior ethos," Parnell said in a statement. "Any potential renaming will be announced after internal reviews are complete."
Among those ships being considered for renaming are the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, USNS Harriet Tubman and USNS Cesar Chavez, according to CBS News.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the decision to rename the ships "shameful."
"The reported decision by the Trump administration to change the names of the USNS Harvey Milk and other ships in the John Lewis-class is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream," Pelosi wrote Tuesday in a post on X.
"Our military is the most powerful in the world -- but this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the 'warrior' ethos," she added. "Instead, it is a surrender of a fundamental American value: to honor the legacy of those who worked to build a better country."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
UPI
an hour ago
- UPI
Trump asks Supreme Court to allow further Education Department dismantling
1 of 4 | Federal officials on Friday filed an application with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of President Donald Trumnp, asking it to remove a lower court judge's ruling currently prohibiting further dismantling of the Department of Education. Photo by Eric Lee/UPI | License Photo June 6 (UPI) -- Federal officials on Friday filed an application with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to remove a lower court judge's ruling currently prohibiting further dismantling of the Department of Education. President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon are listed as the applicants on court documents. The Trump administration is attempting to remove a temporary order instituted last month by U.S. District Court Judge Myong Joun in Massachusetts that forces the federal government to re-hire almost 1,400 fired employees and prohibits further layoffs. Solicitor General D. John Sauer also asked the Supreme Court to stay Joun's order while it considers the application, which would allow the administration to move forward with its plans to further dismantle the department. Joun last month ruled the department, which was created in 1979, "must be able to carry out its functions and its obligations under the [Department of Education Organization Act] and other relevant statutes as mandated by Congress." A spokesperson for the Department of Education said at the time the federal government would immediately challenge the order "on an emergency basis." "The Constitution vests the Executive Branch, not district courts, with the authority to make judgments about how many employees are needed to carry out an agency's statutory functions, and whom they should be," Sauer, who filed the application on behalf of Trump and McMahon, wrote. "For the second time in three months, the same district court has thwarted the Executive Branch's authority to manage the Department of Education despite lacking jurisdiction to second-guess the Executive's internal management decisions. This Court curtailed that overreach when the district court attempted to prevent the Department from terminating discretionary grants." In mid-March, McMahon confirmed nearly half of her department's staff would be placed on leave as part of Trump's plan to eliminate the agency, part of a larger push to cut federal spending.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Watchdog probes if aides were asked to delete Hegseth's Signal chats
The Pentagon's watchdog is looking into whether any of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's aides were asked to delete Signal messages that may have shared sensitive military information with a reporter, according to two people familiar with the investigation and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. The inspector general's request focuses on how information about the March 15 airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen was shared on the messaging app. This comes as Hegseth is scheduled to testify before Congress next week for the first time since his confirmation hearing. He is likely to face questions under oath not only about his handling of sensitive information but also the wider turmoil at the Pentagon following the departures of several senior aides and an internal investigation over information leaks. Hegseth already has faced questions over the installation of an unsecured internet line in his office that bypassed the Pentagon's security protocols and revelations that he shared details about the military strikes in multiple Signal chats. One of the chats included his wife and brother, while the other included President Donald Trump's top national security officials and inadvertently included The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson had no comment on Friday, citing the pending investigation. The inspector general's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Besides finding out whether anyone was asked to delete Signal messages, the inspector general also is asking some past and current staffers who were with Hegseth on the day of the strikes who posted the information and who had access to his phone, according to the two people familiar with the investigation and the documents reviewed by the AP. The people were not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Democratic lawmakers and a small number of Republicans have said that the information Hegseth posted to the Signal chats before the military jets had reached their targets could have put those pilots' lives at risk and that for any lower-ranking members of the military it would have led to their firing. Hegseth has said none of the information was classified. Multiple current and former military officials have said there is no way details with that specificity, especially before a strike took place, would have been OK to share on an unsecured device. 'I said repeatedly, nobody is texting war plans,' Hegseth told Fox News Channel in April after reporting emerged about the chat that included his family members. 'I look at war plans every day. What was shared over Signal then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations, for media coordinations and other things. That's what I've said from the beginning.' Trump has made clear that Hegseth continues to have his support, saying during a Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia that the defense secretary 'went through a lot' but 'he's doing really well.' Hegseth has limited his public engagements with the press since the Signal controversy. He has yet to hold a Pentagon press briefing, and his spokesman has briefed reporters there only once. The inspector general is investigating Hegseth at the request of the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island. Signal is a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications, but it can be hacked and is not approved for carrying classified information. On March 14, one day before the strikes against the Houthis, the Defense Department cautioned personnel about the vulnerability of the app. Trump has said his administration targeted the Houthis over their 'unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence and terrorism.' He has noted the disruption Houthi attacks caused through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, key waterways for energy and cargo shipments between Asia and Europe through Egypt's Suez Canal. The Houthi rebels attacked more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors, between November 2023 until January this year. Their leadership described the attacks as aimed at ending the Israeli war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Trump's Pentagon keeps sending destroyers that fought in the Red Sea to the US southern border — a fourth one is on its way
A fourth US Navy destroyer that participated in the Red Sea conflict is on its way to support President Donald Trump's southern border mission, bringing a range of advanced naval combat capabilities to a very different operating environment. The Navy announced Friday that the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Cole had left its homeport in Florida to support US Northern Command's "border security objectives." The Trump administration has made cracking down on maritime-related criminal activity, including weapons smuggling, drug trafficking, and illegal immigration, a top priority, and the Defense Department has sent military assets to the US-Mexico border. Among these assets are five destroyers and a littoral combat ship on staggered deployments. Cole, like the other warships, is set to be accompanied by a US Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment. They specialize in military operations at sea, such as counterterrorism, counterpiracy, and anti-immigration missions. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers like the Cole are advanced naval surface ships with robust communications and sensor suites and are suited for long-endurance missions. These vessels can be armed with surface-to-air and land-attack missiles. Other armaments include the ship's five-inch deck gun, machine guns, and a Phalanx Close-In Weapons System. The Navy said that the Cole's deployment to the southern border "aims to enhance maritime security and support interagency collaboration in the region through presence operations" and the support of the Coast Guard operators, who can perform vessel boardings, searches, and seizures to target drug trafficking, illegal immigration, and maritime criminal activity. Cole's new assignment makes it the latest destroyer to go from the Red Sea conflict, where it defended international shipping lanes from attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, to patrolling the waters near the US-Mexico border. It follows in the footsteps of USS Gravely, USS Stockdale, and USS Spruance, which all had extensive Middle East deployments last year. When the Cole arrives in the Gulf of Mexico, which the Trump administration has renamed the Gulf of America, it will be one of two destroyers actively participating in the mission. The other warship, USS Sampson, departed its homeport in San Diego a few days ago and will be operating in the Pacific Ocean.
