In a rare order, SecDef Pete Hegseth, on day one of the Rainbow Mafia’s so-called “Pride Month,” announced that the USNS Harvey Milk, a Military Sealift Command oiler, will be renamed. The change is to ensure “alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture.”

He plans to announce the new name aboard the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned Navy ship, and said the DoD is also considering renaming a handful of other ships now named for political activists, including Cesar Chavez, Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Medgar Evers, Dolores Huerta, and John Lewis, none of whom have any record of military service.

SanFran Nan Pelosi (D-CA) protested, “As the rest of us are celebrating the joy of Pride Month,” the renaming “is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream.” She added, “Stripping his name from a Navy ship won’t erase his legacy as an American icon.” No, but it will help erase it!

Corrupt leftist Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) joined Pelosi, protesting, “The Navy has seen fit to honor these civil rights icons — who spent their lives fighting for the rights of the American people — by naming ships in their honor.” No, the Navy was ordered to name a ship for this deviant pedo predator.

Hey, when Pelosi and Schiff are against it, you know Donald Trump and Hegseth made the right decision!

So, why the protest?

For starters, most U.S. Navy ships carry the names of individuals who have a distinguished record of military service. Some, like the flagships of Carrier Battle Groups, are named for U.S. presidents. That would include the USS Ronald Reagan, on which I last crossed the Pacific back in 2009.

But Harvey Milk? Though a Navy Veteran before his “other than honorable” discharge 70 years ago, Milk was no distinguished Veteran, and in fact was a disgraceful, predatory pedophile politician.

Among other things, Milk was, as political analyst Michael Knowles put it kindly, “an unrepentant pederast and all-around reprobate.”

Milk’s biographer Daniel Flynn wrote that “Milk’s taste in men veered toward boys.” His close friend Oliver Sipple “knew that Harvey Milk slept with boys.”

Clearly, when Barack Obama named the ship for Milk, which was later christened under Joe Biden in 2021, this was part of their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion agenda, pandering to their gender-confusion cult constituents. Those two administrations are responsible for historic declines in military morale.

Obama was so smitten with Milk that his administration even issued a pedophile postage stamp in his name.

To put this misnaming travesty into perspective, as I did in back in 2016, consider another ship with the name “Harvey,” the USS Harvey Barnum, scheduled to be commissioned this year. That ship is appropriately named for a distinguished Marine Medal of Honor recipient I have known for years, Vietnam Vet Col Harvey “Barney” Barnum.

Other Navy ships carry the names of distinguished Navy and Marines Vets, among them the USS Michael Murphy, USS Lewis B. Puller, USS Jack H. Lucas, and USS Hershel Williams.

These are all the names of men every Navy and Marine Veteran will recognize, men worthy of such honor.

As I noted recently, this year marks the 250th anniversary of America’s Armed Forces in 1775 — the U.S. Army (14 June), the U.S. Navy (13 October), and the U.S. Marine Corps (10 November). It is with enormous gratitude that these anniversaries are being celebrated under Trump as commander-in-chief with Veteran VP JD Vance, rather than the despicable Kamala Harris and her code-talker sidekick, Tim “Stolen Valor” Walz.

Ahead of Memorial Day last month, SecDef Hegseth delivered a keynote address for a Special Operations Forces event, and one line summed up the restoration of the DoD under Trump: “Everything starts and ends with warriors, from training to the battlefield. We are leaving wokeness and weakness behind. No more pronouns. No more climate change obsession. No more emergency vaccine mandates. No more dudes in dresses, we’re done with that s**t.”

Part of Hegseth’s actions included restoring the historic names of Ft. Bragg and Ft. Benning. And now you can add to that list the scuttling of the Rainbow Mafia’s grossly misnamed “USNS Harvey Milk.”

Trump and Hegseth have already made enormous strides to restore military morale, and have equally ambitious plans to restore America’s military superpower status.

Finally, I was shocked to read this headline from John Fund, a former Wall Street Journal editorial board member and now the national-affairs reporter for National Review Online: “Harvey Milk Was a Patriot.” Of his enamorment with Milk, Fund writes, “I grew up just outside San Francisco and can remember attending a speech during which Milk spoke eloquently about how human rights begin on neighborhood streets.” That explains a lot…

No, John, Milk was not a Patriot. Apparently, you have only the most superficial country-club understanding of American Patriots. For starters, I suggest you visit our Profiles of Valor archive.

PS: While Hegseth is correcting Navy ship wrongs, he can also undo the naming of the next Ford-class aircraft carrier, the USS William J. Clinton (CVN-82). That was announced by Biden on his way out the door, and the she is scheduled to be launched in 2032. That naming is an insult to ALL Navy Patriots, especially Naval Aviators, among them my grandfather, father, and uncle.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

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