I know how you feel, but sometimes you just have to find a way to laugh... 
instead of bursting into uncontrollable tears--
Posted on 07/28/2016 9:04:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The United States Navy will be naming one of their ships after gay rights icon and San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, according to a report by the U.S. Naval Institute, which cites a Congressional notice obtained by USNI News.
The July 14 notice, which was signed by Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, indicates that he plans to name a planned Military Sealift Command fleet oiler, USNS Harvey Milk, according to USNI.
The ship is reportedly being built by General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego, California.
A Department of the Navy spokesman did not have a comment on the report.
Milk, who moved from New York to settle in San Francisco in the seventies, was elected to the SF Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California. In 1972, he and his partner Scott Smith – portrayed by James Franco in the film “Milk” – opened Castro Camera on 575 Castro Street, which he operated until his assassination in 1978. His involvement in San Francisco’s gay rights movement earned him the name “Mayor of Castro Street.”
He joined the U.S. Navy during the Korean War and served on the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) as a diving officer in San Diego. Milk came from a Navy family. He was honorably discharged from service as a lieutenant junior grade, according to USNI.
On Nov. 27, 1978, Milk was shot inside San Francisco City Hall. He was wearing his U.S. Navy diver’s belt buckle at the time, according to the report.
Ever since the 2011 repeal of the Department of Defense’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, California lawmakers have pushed to name a ship after Milk.
“This action by the U.S. Secretary of the Navy will further send a green light to all the brave men and women who serve our nation that honesty, acceptance and authenticity are held up among the highest ideals of our military,” Milk’s nephew Stuart Milk told the San Diego LGBT Weekly in 2012.
On Thursday, San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener, who signed a resolution urging the Navy to name a ship after Milk, applauded the Navy's apparent decision.
“This is an incredible day for the LGBT community and for our country. As a gay man and a San Franciscan, I'm incredibly proud that the Navy is honoring Harvey Milk — and the entire LGBT community — by naming a ship after him," Weiner said.
"This momentous decision sends a powerful message around the world about who we are as a country and the values we hold," he said. "When Harvey Milk served in the military, he couldn't tell anyone who he truly was. Now our country is telling the men and women who serve, and the entire world, that we honor and support people for who they are. Harvey Milk's strength continues to reverberate throughout our city, our country, and the world.”
I know a lot of people find it humorous, and I understand why, but I cannot bring myself to appreciate it.
To me, symbolism means something. The American Flag STILL means something to me, I served under it, my father was buried under it. The Pledge of Allegiance means something to me. Many of the traditions of the American military mean something to me.
And the name of a ship means something to me. Thousands of men have fought and died on US naval vessels. A ship does come to mean something to the people who have served and are serving on them. I know people don’t understand, but you talk to any man who served on the USS Enterprise in WWII, and they aren’t going to tell you it was a big hunk of gray metal that floated in the water even if they DID hate serving on it at the time. It was family, in a way. When they had liberty with friends in some of the best and most meaningful times of their lives, years later, that is all associated with that ship in their minds, as if the vessel itself participated, as it did.
They are going to tell you it was home, there was *something* animate in some way about it. It seemed to be living. It meant something. When she was scrapped and cut up for razor blades because no funds could be found to preserve her, grown men cried, the same way men have when watching a ship they have served on sink in front of their eyes. It isn’t just a hunk of metal. It is different.
And many men who have served on many ships, speak about their service on there in a way that means something different
To name a ship in this fashion is a deliberate, arrogant, and contemptuous attempt to insult, ridicule, and diminish the service of any sailor on any ship, because they are, in essence, letting those sailors know EXACTLY what they think of the military in general, that branch of the service, that ship, and every person who serves on it.
There was an Arleigh Burke class destroyer commissioned a little while back, I got to see her under construction over a long period of time, and her name was the USS Michael Murphy. She was named for a US Navy SEAL who gave his life valorously and unselfishly to save the lives of the men he loved and who served as brothers with him.
And now, they will name a ship after Harvey Milk, it may not be regular Navy, and it may not be a warship, but there will be American sailors serving on it, and if it comes to war, those men are going to have to fight and may die on that vessel.
Both Lt. Michael Murphy and Harvey Milk loved men, so to some people, this is just fine. Harvey Milk loved men, and his idea of showing his love was to promote virus infected group sex bath houses, because that is something society just cannot live without.
Lt. Michael Murphy loved men too, his men. The men he served with as brothers, and for whom he gave his own life so that they had a chance to live.
All of you tell me: Whose love is greater, whose love is a travesty, and whose love is deserving of having a naval vessel named after him?
This makes me so angry, I just cannot put into words how deliberately cruel, and denigrating this is, and is specifically meant to be.
It is a travesty, and the most astonishingly loathsome, vile, treacherous and base thing about this is that it is being perpetrated by the highest people in our own military and the highest people in our own government.
I just cannot bring myself to laugh about it.
Thank You for your Service and for that amazing comment.
Which is exactly the same case for me.
But I am being realistic. Were I a sailor assigned to that ship, I'd only report to the hull number.
"F Y N"
Because it isn't the navy I served in, nor the Navy my father spent his life in.
They spelled Fairy wrong.....
While I disagree with his politics and life style, he was a Navy veteran:
“He joined the U.S. Navy during the Korean War and served on the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) as a diving officer in San Diego. Milk came from a Navy family. He was honorably discharged from service as a lieutenant junior grade, according to USNI.”
They have no choice in the ship they are assigned. No more than where they are stationed.
Hubby spent 20 years in, with numerous moves, ships, and postings. Aboard the USS Midway during Frequent Wind Vietnam, USS Constellation Cuban Missile Crisis, Final cruise was the USS Enchon. Career was 60-80’s. Ret. SCPO.
For us, having a ship named the USS Ronald Reagan is doubly a good thing, because it is named after a great man who meant something to this country, and also because it is a poke in the eyes of the same type of people who worship a degenerate scumbag like Harvey Milk.
For them, they may or may not care about Harvey Milk, only a moron would have even thought anything that person did or stood for was worthy of anything apart from scorn. But to them, the naming of this ship has a doubly good purpose for them as well. It allows them to poke fun at and demoralize the military, as well as destroying and eroding anything worthwhile it has ever stood for, while at the same time, antagonizing people like us to whom this means something.
And Oswald was a Marine as well. As was John Murtha.
I see and understand the point you make, but it doesn’t buy me anything.
This is a wicked travesty.
Sigh. Just calming down now. I know I shouldn’t let this kind of thing get to me, but it does.
It is a deliberate tactic of the Left, to appropriate the symbols of their foes and turn them into something that they believe in, while at the same time destroying the original meaning that may have been of value to their opponents.
It is exactly what they are doing here.
R.L.
You posted: “I see and understand the point you make, but it doesn’t buy me anything.”
I agree with you, other than Mabry actually selected someone who had a connection to the Navy, which is his ‘want’ not to do, according to a friend who works for the Navy History and Heritage Center.
The Navy History and Heritage Center is required to research and vet the names that will be given to new ships, however Mabry has ‘reportedly’ told them he doesn’t care about their reviews and that requirement.
I know. I got the spirit in which you posted it, and as you said, it is true.
Naming the ship after Milk comes close. He was one of Jones’ political allies when Jones and his Peoples’ Temple were based in San Francisco. Jones effectively owned Mayor Moscone. Milk wasn’t completely owned by Jones, but protected Jones to a certain extent.
Salon of all places had a very good article several years ago. http://www.salon.com/2012/05/01/jim_jones_sinister_grip_on_san_francisco/
Milk was (IIRC a Navy vet) an average politician, who was only noteworthy for being one of the first openly homosexual political figures and getting shot by a political rival where his sexuality was on tangentially related to his death. Of course his political allies immediately made him a martyr.
Mabus has turned the already political process of naming ships into liberal high art.
It’s called gallows humor, it gets you through the worst. Of course it’s a travesty, just like making us pay to bring and support the terrorists from a culture that has been at war with ours for a thousand years to commit murder and rape and stain the proud heritage of our father’s fathers.
I guess you must know the irony of your post is that both Cary Grant and Tony Curtis were as queer as a three-dollar bill.
It’s about advancing a radical agenda and getting “revenge” on the military.
All will be made to bow down to liberalism.
And Harvey Milk did have a thing with the murderous Jim Jones.
I know how you feel, but sometimes you just have to find a way to laugh... instead of bursting into uncontrollable tears--
Don't know just where you are getting this $3 information... 
but there are hundreds of women Carey and Tony bedded over the years that would offer up strong disagreement--
Thank your husband for his service.
And thank you for your service. Yes, I mean you, as I know the wives and families makes lots of sacrifices in support of their men in the service.
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