Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made good Friday on his promise to fight wokeness in the U.S. military—including retroactively, when it comes to left-wing activism that dates back to Barack Obama’s presidency.
In a recorded speech on Friday, Hegseth announced that the USNS Harvey Milk would henceforth be known as the USNS Oscar V. Peterson, after a World War II-era U.S. Navy Medal of Honor recipient.
“We are taking the politics out of ship-naming,” Hegseth said after the announcement.
The 2016 naming of a Navy replenishment oiler after Milk, a Korean War-era Navy veteran who left the military on an “other than honorable” discharge, had long been a subject of political controversy, given Milk’s left-wing political activism and relationship with a teenage boy.
Peterson, by contrast, is a Medal of Honor recipient who died from injuries sustained during the Battle of the Coral Sea against Japan in World War II in May of 1942.
“We’re not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration,” the defense secretary explained.
“Instead, we’re renaming the ship after a United States Navy congressional Medal of Honor recipient. As it should be,” Hegseth said.
Peterson was a chief watertender on the USS Neosho, which sustained heavy damage during the Battle of the Coral Sea. During the battle, Peterson acted heroically to successfully keep the ship afloat.
His Medal of Honor citation reads in part: “Lacking assistance because of injuries to the other members of his repair party and severely wounded himself, Peterson, with no concern for his own life, closed the bulkhead stop valves, and in so doing received additional burns, which resulted in his death.”
“People want to be proud of the ship they’re sailing in,” Hegseth noted in his announcement.
Peterson left behind a widow, Lola Peterson, and two sons, Fred and Donald. For unexplained reasons, Lola Peterson received her husband’s medal and certificate in the mail, rather than through the customary ceremony. Nor was her husband initially given a grave marker as his body was buried at sea.
The U.S. Navy partially rectified those oversights in 2010 when Fred Peterson received his father’s medal at a memorial service. Peterson’s widow had died in 1991, and son Donald passed away about 18 months before the ceremony. A marker was also placed for Oscar Peterson in Richfield Cemetery in Idaho, where his widow had moved with her sons after his death.
Now, the Navy has gone further, by commemorating the military hero by naming a ship after him.
“His spirit of self-sacrifice and loyalty, characteristic of a fine seaman, was in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the service of his country,” concludes the citation for Peterson’s Medal of Honor.
