Overview

• On June 27, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the USNS Harvey Milk will be renamed USNS Oscar V. Peterson.
• Hegseth said the change is meant to take politics out of ship naming by choosing a Medal of Honor recipient over a political activist.
• Oscar V. Peterson earned the Medal of Honor posthumously for sealing bulkhead valves to save the USS Neosho during the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 despite grievous wounds.
• LGBTQ+ advocates and some lawmakers condemned the move as erasing Harvey Milk’s legacy and undermining diversity initiatives in the military.
• Pentagon officials say other ships named for civil rights leaders, including Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, may also be reviewed for renaming.