USNS Harvey Milk

Should Hegseth deep-six the oiler Harvey Milk for a more warrior name?

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the name of the USNS Harvey Milk, an oiler named after the assassinated gay rights activist, replaced with something more appropriate for a “warrior culture.”

On the other hand, note that the Harvey Milk is an unarmed supply ship with a civilian crew: that’s the distinction between USNS-prefixed supply ships and USS-prefixed warships.

The USNS Harvey Milk is one of the John Lewis class of oilers. Back during the Great Awokening, the Obama Administration came up with the idea of naming the new class of oilers after civil rights leaders, such as Lucy Stone, Thurgood Marshall, Dolores Huerta, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Unusual for its class of namesakes, Milk at least served in the U.S. Navy (before getting kicked out for doing gay stuff on-board ship). He was an officer on submarines during the Korean War, which sounds like pretty serious duty.

I was hoping that the USNS Bob Hope class of cargo ships would likewise be named after USO performers: USNS Ann-Margaret, USNS Redd Foxx, USNS Phyllis Diller, USNS Raquel Welch, and so forth. But instead they were mostly named after Medal of Honor winners.

The Biden Administration renamed two ships for having Confederate cooties. The USS Maury had been named after the great US Navy oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury, “The Pathfinder of the Seas.” But at age 55 in 1861, Maury went with his native Virginia, so forget him. The ship was renamed after a civilian lady oceanographer.

And the USS Chancellorsville was renamed because Robert E. Lee won that classic battle of the American Civil War (but lost Stonewall Jackson there).

The Biden Administration’s spiteful actions are not considered Culture War because reasons.

Personally, I’d name a class of ships after …

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