Naming one after draft dodger Clinton?

The USS Liar?

I guess after you run out of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Reagan, you're getting toward the end of the list of presidents who deserve to have capital ships named after them. Throw Franklin Roosevelt in there. Theodore Roosevelt probably doesn't pass the consequentiality test, but if he's in the mix, I'd suggest Andrew Jackson.

IMHO, being president shouldn't be a qualification to have a ship, let alone a carrier, after you. My personal preference is that Eisenhower should have a fort, not a carrier, named after him, and don't get me started on John Stennis and Carl Vinson. (I can't let this paragraph go without mentioning Jimmy Carter, even though, with him, we're talking about a sub, not a carrier.)

And one of the many problems with DEI and affirmative action is that people recognize that standards have been changed, so they lose sight of whether someone's accomplishments merited the recognition they receive. IMHO, that's true in the case of Doris Miller, who, if he were white, would probably have had a destroyer named after him. There are plenty of MoH winners in the Navy and Marine Corps (and even a few Navy Cross winners whose feast were equally badass) -- why him? We all know why, but we can't say it.

I digress on that one point. Carriers ought to be named after consequential presidents, consequential battles, and to carry on the names of fabled USN ships. A carrier's name shouldn't have people going, "Who?" or "Huh?"

I kinda liked the days when you could tell what a combat ship was by its name.

Did they ever recycle Hornet or Wasp or Lexington or Yorktown as names for any carriers?

USS Hornet has not been used since CV-12. Currently a museum ship in Alameda, CA.
USS Wasp LHD-1. Amphibious assault ship. Commissioned 1989, still in service.
USS Yorktown CG-48. Ticonderoga class cruiser. Commissioned 1984, decommissioned 2004.
USS Lexington has not been used since CV-16. Decommissioned in 1991, currently a museum ship in Corpus Christi.

12 of the Tico class cruisers shared names with WWII carriers.

On the subject of people who haven't had a ship named after them, probably due to race, while I was mining Wiki for the info on the Tico class, I noticed that in 2023, the Navy changed the name of CG-62 from Chancellorsville to the Robert Smalls.

Smalls was never awarded the Medal (and there was no Navy Cross in the Civil War), but he does deserve the honor. Go look him up. The Navy actually said no to the naming on a couple of occasions. Then a few years back, the Army finally named one of their boats after him. I wonder if that poked the Navy a bit.

Names I would put on a "permanent list" for carriers based on historical ship performance: Enterprise, Ranger, Bonhomme Richard, Saratoga. Plus Independence just because.
Consequential presidents and admirals (not permanent, in rotation): Washington, Lincoln, Nimitz, Farragut, King, Leahy. How the hell the Navy hasn't named a ship after King, I can't fathom.

Edit: there was a frigate, FF-1091, named after Doris Miller. And apparently the fourth of the Ford class will also have that name.

I can't think of a darn thing named after Chesty Puller.

OldArmyCT said:

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I can't think of a darn thing named after Chesty Puller.

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did you even look

USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB-3), (formerly USNS Lewis B. Puller (T-ESB-3), and (T-MLP-3/T-AFSB-1) prior to that)[17][18] is the first purpose-built expeditionary mobile base vessel (previously classified as a mobile landing platform, and then as an afloat forward staging base) for the United States Navy, and the second ship to be named in honor of Chesty Puller.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lewis_B._Puller_(ESB-3)

OldArmyCT said:

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I can't think of a darn thing named after Chesty Puller.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lewis_B._Puller_(FFG-23)

Decommissioned Perry Class Frigate.
I had orders to that ship , new construction, but managed to get them changed when I heard the prospective CO was a hard ass that wasn't even going allow sophisticated personal electronics like a walkman onboard. And everyone was going to have to do marine style PT every day. ...... No thanks.

I'm not going to disparage Miller, but I don't think his name belongs on a carrier.

It should be on a destroyer or frigate, same as any MoH or NC winner.

I'll put it like this, for comparison, I think that people outside of Galveston / Harris Counties don't really know anything about celebrating Juneteenth.

But... now that it's a national holiday (and we know why - Thank You St. Floyd), I'm 100% behind a national holiday that is really a Texas Holiday.

My hope is that people at least learn the origins of the holiday.

Likewise, if Doris Miller's name is on an Aircraft Carrier, I hope that people learn why. i.e. who he was and what he did during an era where he wouldn't have been allowed to attend the same Waco High (Tigers) that my father attended.

In other words, as a Waco/Texas homer/supporter, I'll support it. Now if they were naming a carrier after David Koresh, or Chip and Joanna, that would be a problem - LOL.

They cheapened it when they named carriers for Stennis and Vinson. Heck, for my money, it started with Forrestall. Recency bias has given us JFK (twice!), Ford, Bush 41, Reagan, Clinton and Bush 43. Miller doesn't cheapen it any further, it just firmly solidifies the fact that there's no standard except politics. (Reagan, IMHO, makes it on merit, too.)

If you were asked to pick the names of the 16 or so ships that would project American power across the globe, how many of those names would pop into your head?

I like the idea of not naming ships after people unless they've been deceased for a while. I also like the idea of a rotating list of maybe 20 names, and they should be names that any high-schooler would recognize.

Otherwise, let's not stop at Miller. How about the John Basilone, the Roy Benavides, the Sado Munemori, the Ralph George Nepel?

If you have a standard naming convention, even if it's "recent ex-presidents," it's easy to say, "He doesn't meet the criteria." If you don't, everyone knows the truth but dare not speak it.

I do think King deserves better than a DD.

DCC80 said:

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They cheapened it when they named carriers for Stennis and Vinson. Heck, for my money, it started with Forrestall. Recency bias has given us JFK (twice!), Ford, Bush 41, Reagan, Clinton and Bush 43. Miller doesn't cheapen it any further, it just firmly solidifies the fact that there's no standard except politics. (Reagan, IMHO, makes it on merit, too.)

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Not to mention the carrier named after a West Point grad!!

DCC80 said:

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Otherwise, let's not stop at Miller. How about the John Basilone, the Roy Benavides, the Sado Munemori, the Ralph George Nepel?

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Benavides, Munemori, and Nepel were all Army.

Destroyers and frigates should be named after Navy and Marine holders of the MoH or Navy Cross, or sister service/foreign equivalents.

I may get some flak for this, but amphibs should be named after assault landings to include ones conducted by the Army. Such as Vera Cruz, Normandy, and Fort Fisher.

Okay, I could do some actual research and throw out some USN or USMC MoH winners who were Italian, Latin or Japanese (maybe), but the point would remain the same. Nobody's ever proposed naming a CVN after them. Carriers are being named for reasons of political expediency, rather than on the basis of excellence at the highest level of government, tradition, or naval or, more generally, military or national history, which, IMO, is what should be the criteria.Give Miller a DD or FF. LCSs named after Clinton, Kennedy, Ford, and the Bushes would be appropriate.

DCC80 said:

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Okay, I could do some actual research and throw out some USN or USMC MoH winners who were Italian, Latin or Japanese (maybe), but the point would remain the same. Nobody's ever proposed naming a CVN after them. Carriers are being named for reasons of political expediency, rather than on the basis of excellence at the highest level of government, tradition, or naval or, more generally, military or national history, which, IMO, is what should be the criteria.Give Miller a DD or FF. LCSs named after Clinton, Kennedy, Ford, and the Bushes would be appropriate.

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when you become secnav you can do that but no one active duty who serves is complaining about honoring an enlisted man