U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered the U.S., Navy to rename one of its ship’s that is named after LGBTQ civil rights pioneer and icon Harvey Milk, according to reports today by Military.com.
The website, “the leading news and information website for U.S. service members, veterans and their families,” called the move “a rare step.”
Reporter Konstantin Toropin writes that Military.com had “reviewed a memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy — the official who holds the power to name Navy ships” — that describes plans to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, and that a defense official had confirmed the intention and had told Military.com that Navy Secretary John Phelan was “ordered to do so by Hegseth.”
That same official also confirmed that “the timing of the announcement — occurring during Pride Month — was intentional.”
Miliart.com
That same official also confirmed that “the timing of the announcement — occurring during Pride Month — was intentional.”
While Hegseth’s office would not respond to Military.com’s requests for comment on the issue, the memorandum the news website reviewed said the name change had been ordered in “alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of re-establishing the warrior culture.”
Harvey Milk, by the way, is known as was of the fiercest warriors in the history of the LGBTQ civil rights movement. A San Francisco businessman, he was known as “the mayor of Castro Street” and was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California in 1977 when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
After graduating in 1951 from New York State College for Teachers in Albany (now the State University of New York at Albany), Milk joined the United States Navy during the Korean War, serving aboard the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake as a diving officer. He later transferred to Naval Station, San Diego to serve as a diving instructor.
Milk resigned from the Navy in 1955 at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade, forced to accept an “other than honorable” discharge and leave the service rather than be court-martialed because of his homosexuality, according to Wikipedia.
Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in their offices at City Hall by former San Francisco city supervisor Dan White just one year and 19 days after Milk was elected.
Hegseth served in the Minnesota Army National Guard after graduating from Princeton in 2003. He served at Guantanamo Bay before doing a tour of duty in Iraq, according to Wikipedia. He left the service then returned to active duty in 2012 as an Army captain then was eventually promoted to major before leaving the Army to join the Individual Ready Reserves.
Hegseth has said he resigned from the reserves in January 2021 after being banned from serving at the inauguration of Joe Biden because of controversy over his tattoos linked to white supremacist groups.
Hegseth had worked as a contributor to Fox News from 2014 until Donald Trump nominated him for defense secretary after winning his second term as president last November. In addition to allegations of infidelity in the first two of his three marriages, and allegations of abuse and sexual assault dating back some seven-plus years, in his five short months as defense secretary Hegseth has already been at the center of several embarrassing controversies.
Those allegations include conducting top secret Department of Defense on the public communications app Signal, sharing classified Defense Department information in Signal with his current wife — a Fox and Friends producer — and other family members. He also shared sensitive classified information in a Signal chat group that inadvertently included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.
In addition Hegseth, who has been mocked for his macho “warrior culture” comments, has also faced allegations of alcohol abuse and misconduct, according to NPR.
— Tammye Nash
What did Harvey do that 100,000 others haven’t done for the military? Being gay is not an accomplishment