The USNS Harvey Milk departs the Normal Dynamics NASSCO shipyard after a christening ceremony in San Diego, on Nov. 6, 2021. The ship has been renamed the USNS Oscar V. Peterson, after a World Battle II naval officer, Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth introduced Friday.
Ariana Drehsler/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
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Ariana Drehsler/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
The Pentagon has formally stripped the late homosexual civil rights chief Harvey Milk’s identify from a U.S. naval vessel, amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to erase what it describes as “woke” ideology from the general public.
The previous USNS Harvey Milk is now referred to as the USNS Oscar V. Peterson, Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth introduced in a video posted on-line Friday.
“We’re taking the politics out of ship naming,” Hegseth mentioned. “We’re not renaming the ship to something political. This isn’t about political activists, in contrast to the earlier administration.”
The ship is a part of the John Lewis-class oilers, named after the famed civil rights activist and longtime congressman.
In 2016, then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus mentioned ships on this class can be named after leaders in civil rights activism. That included paying homage to Milk, who was a Navy veteran and have become the primary brazenly homosexual particular person to serve in California politics when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Milk was assassinated by a former board colleague in 1978, forsaking a legacy of advocacy for homosexual rights.
The ship’s new namesake, Oscar V. Peterson, was a naval officer who was killed in World Battle II and posthumously granted a Medal of Honor by Congress for bravery throughout the warfare.
“Folks need to be pleased with the ship they’re crusing in,” Hegseth mentioned within the video announcement. “And so we’re naming it after a chief, a Navy chief.”
Underneath Hegseth’s steerage, the Navy is reviewing the names of a number of different ships named after girls, Black and Hispanic individuals.
Different Navy vessels beneath evaluation embody these named after Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Harriet Tubman, Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Lucy Stone and Medgar Evers.
