WASHINGTON (AP) — Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, a extremely uncommon transfer that may strip the ship of the moniker of a slain homosexual rights activist who served as a sailor in the course of the Korean Battle.
U.S. officers say Navy Secretary John Phelan put collectively a small crew to rename the replenishment oiler and {that a} new identify is anticipated this month. The officers, who spoke on situation of anonymity to debate inner deliberations, stated the following identify had not but been chosen.
The change was specified by an inner memo that officers stated defended the motion as a transfer to align with President Donald Trump and Hegseth’s targets to “re-establish the warrior tradition.”
It marks the most recent transfer by Hegseth and the broader Trump administration to purge all applications, insurance policies, books and social media mentions of references to range, fairness and inclusion. And it comes throughout Pleasure Month — the identical timing because the Pentagon’s marketing campaign to power transgender troops out of the U.S. navy.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell stated in a press release that Hegseth is “dedicated to making sure that the names hooked up to all DOD installations and belongings are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s historical past, and the warrior ethos.”
Phelan’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the choice, which was first reported by Army.com.
The USNS Harvey Milk was named in 2016 by then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who stated on the time that the John Lewis-class of oilers can be named after leaders who fought for civil and human rights.
Milk, who was portrayed by Sean Penn in an Oscar-winning 2008 film, served for 4 years within the Navy earlier than he was pressured out for being homosexual. He later grew to become one of many first brazenly homosexual candidates elected to public workplace.
Milk served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and had sponsored a invoice banning discrimination based mostly on sexual orientation in public lodging, housing and employment. It handed, and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone signed it into legislation.
On Nov. 27, 1978, Milk and Moscone had been assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former metropolis supervisor who solid the only vote towards Milk’s invoice.
Former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat representing San Francisco, stated in a press release Tuesday that “this spiteful transfer doesn’t strengthen our nationwide safety or the ‘warrior’ ethos. As a substitute, it’s a give up of a basic American worth: to honor the legacy of those that labored to construct a greater nation.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom additionally slammed the transfer, saying Milk was a Korean Battle fight veteran whose commander referred to as him “excellent.”
“Stripping his identify from a Navy ship gained’t erase his legacy as an American icon, however it does reveal Trump’s contempt for the very values our veterans struggle to guard,” the Democrat wrote on X.
The ship was christened in 2021, and in the course of the ceremony, then-Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro stated he wished to be on the occasion “not simply to amend the wrongs of the previous, however to provide inspiration to all of our LGBTQ group leaders who served within the Navy, in uniform as we speak and within the civilian workforce as nicely, too, and to inform them that we’re dedicated to them sooner or later.”
The ship is operated by Army Sealift Command, with a crew of about 125 civilian mariners. The Navy says it carried out its first resupply mission at sea in fall 2024, whereas working within the Virginia Capes. It continued to resupply Navy ships at sea off the East Coast till it started scheduled upkeep at Alabama Shipyard in Cellular, Alabama, earlier this yr.
Whereas the renaming is uncommon, the Biden administration additionally modified the names of two Navy ships in 2023 as a part of the hassle to take away Accomplice names from U.S. navy installations.
The usChancellorsville — named for the Civil Battle battle — was renamed the united statesRobert Smalls after a sailor and former enslaved particular person. And the USNS Maury, an oceanographic survey ship initially named after a Accomplice sailor, was renamed the USNS Marie Tharp after a geologist and oceanographic cartographer who created the primary scientific maps of the Atlantic Ocean ground.
Maritime lore hints as to why renaming ships is so uncommon, suggesting that altering a reputation is unhealthy luck and tempts retribution from the ocean gods.