The military on June 27 officially changed the name of a ship honoring the late gay icon Harvey Milk, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a social media video posted one day before the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.
The ship, a replenishment oiler, will instead bear the name of Chief Watertender Oscar V. Peterson, who died during the Battle of Coral Sea in World War II.
Military.com first reported on June 3 that a defense official said Hegseth ordered Navy Secretary John Phelan to take Milk’s name off the ship.
In announcing the ship’s new name, Hegseth suggested that the Biden administration named ships for political reasons — even though the ship was not even renamed during former President Joe Biden’s term.
“We are taking the politics out of ship naming,” Hegseth said. “We’re not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration.”
Milk, a New York native who later won a seat as a San Francisco city supervisor in historic fashion, joined the Navy after graduating high school. He was a diving officer on the USS Kittiwake, a diving ship, during the Korean War. He later served as a diving instructor at Naval Station, San Diego.
The ship first took Harvey Milk’s name in 2016 following a ceremony in San Francisco, where then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced that he planned to name John Lewis-class oilers after prominent civil rights leaders.
Because of his sexual orientation, Milk left the military with an “other than honorable” discharge.
