Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy[1] to take the rare step of renaming a ship, one that bears the name of a gay rights icon, documents and sources show.
Military.com reviewed a memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy -- the official who holds the power to name Navy ships -- that showed the sea service had come up with rollout plans for the renaming of the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk.
A defense official confirmed that the Navy was making preparations to strip the ship of its name but noted that Navy Secretary John Phelan was ordered to do so by Hegseth. The official also said that the timing of the announcement -- occurring during Pride month -- was intentional.
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Military.com reached out to Hegseth's office for comment on the move but did not immediately receive a response.
However, the memo reviewed by Military.com noted that the renaming was being done so that there is "alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture," apparently referencing President Donald Trump, Hegseth and Phelan.
Milk became one of the first openly gay elected officials in U.S. history during the 1970s, making him an icon of the nascent gay civil rights movement, and was killed while serving on the board of supervisors in San Francisco.
The renaming news was slated to become public June 13, according to the memo.
A new name for the Harvey Milk was not given but, according to the memo, Hegseth and Phelan are planning to announce the new name aboard the USS Constitution[3], the oldest commissioned Navy ship.
The Harvey Milk is a John Lewis-class oiler, a group of ships that are to be named after prominent civil rights leaders and activists.
While there are some rare examples of Navy ships being renamed following construction and christening, those instances are outliers and, broadly, Navy traditions consider renaming a ship to be taboo.
The most recent renaming occurred in 2023 when the Navy decided to rename the cruiser USS Chancellorsville and research ship USNS Maury -- two names with ties to the Confederacy -- to USS Robert Smalls[4] and USNS Marie Tharp, respectively[5].
Unlike the decision to rename the Harvey Milk, which was done on the orders of Hegseth, the recommendation to rename the two ships came from a commission[6] that was created by Congress to study names with ties to the Confederacy across the entire military.
The oiler was first named after Milk in 2016 by then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. Milk came from a family that had a history of naval service and he was commissioned as an officer in 1951, according to USNI News[7]. Milk then served as a diving officer on the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake during the Korean War. He was honorably discharged from the service as a lieutenant junior grade in 1955.
Milk then went on to run for political office in California, winning a seat on the San Francisco board of supervisors in 1977. He was killed in office in 1978 shortly after passing a bill banning housing and employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.
His death transformed Milk into an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the LGBTQ community. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009[8].
The USNS Harvey Milk is currently completing maintenance and refit work at a shipyard in Alabama that is expected to wrap up by the end of June[9].
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