Stories

The Navy Moves to Strip Doris Miller’s Name From the Aircraft Carrier It Named for Him During Trump’s First Term — and Internally Discusses Putting the Sitting President’s Name on It Instead

CNN reported on August 20, 2026 that the Navy is working to rename the Ford-class aircraft carrier CVN-81, which since January 2020 has been designated the future USS Doris Miller. Two of the three sources familiar with the internal discussions said there have been conversations about renaming it for President Trump — a step with no precedent, because no U.S. aircraft carrier has ever been named for a sitting president. Doris "Dorie" Miller was a mess attendant aboard the USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor. He carried wounded sailors to safety and then manned a .50-caliber anti-aircraft gun he had never been trained to use, firing until the ammunition ran out. Admiral Chester Nimitz awarded him the Navy Cross in 1942, making him the first Black American to receive it. Miller was killed in 1943 when the escort carrier Liscome Bay was torpedoed. The decision to name CVN-81 for him was made during Trump's first term and made the ship the first U.S. carrier named for an enlisted sailor and the first named for an African American. According to the reporting, the effort has been under way since earlier this year; Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao's office has also been rewriting the official guidance on how ships are named and who may be named, including presidents. The Navy has effectively stopped using the name internally and refers to the ship only by its hull number. One source said the Navy intends to name a different, smaller warship for Miller and is recommending him for the Medal of Honor. The Navy is under time pressure: the keel-laying ceremony is expected at the end of 2026. A Pentagon official said there was "nothing official to announce at this time." Miller's family said they learned of it from the press. His great-nephew Thomas Bledsoe told ABC News that "for our family, it was quite a shock to hear that there was conversation about the possibility of renaming the Doris Miller carrier, and so not only was it a shock but it was a shock in that we found out from a news outlet." The two members of Congress who responded most directly are both combat veterans: Sen. Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot who flew 39 combat missions, and Rep. Jason Crow, a former Army Ranger. NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the reported plan "a slap in the face to every war hero and every service member who has worn the uniform," and tied it to the conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which had just returned from a record deployment.

“The audacity to even suggest that we replace the name of Doris Miller, a hero whose courage shined on one of our nation’s darkest days, with draft-dodging Donald Trump is disgusting.”

ICE Has Detained More Than 50 Spouses and Parents of Active-Duty Troops — an Army Sergeant’s Wife Was Deported to Honduras Days After the Sailor on the USS Lincoln Learned His Father Was Taken in Key West

An Associated Press investigation published August 5, 2026 found that more than 50 immediate family members of active-duty U.S. troops — spouses and parents — have been placed in federal immigration detention since January 2025. At least six had been deported, one self-deported, and eight remained in custody when the AP published. Separately, DHS data obtained by Congress showed that between January 20, 2025 and January 26, 2026, ICE arrested 125 military veterans, nearly two-thirds of whom had no active criminal warrant, and moved to deport at least 282 veterans and family members. The through-line is a policy change: in April, ICE rescinded its long-standing guidance treating military service as a "significant mitigating factor" in whether to pursue enforcement, replacing it with a far less protective policy. Processing time for military parole in place — the discretionary protection recruiters have long cited to non-citizen family members — has more than doubled, to about 12 months. On August 9, 2026, a bicameral group of Democrats sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding an accounting. It was led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth and Richard Blumenthal and Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, Maggie Goodlander, Delia Ramirez and Lizzie Fletcher, and signed by roughly 55 members in all, including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi. The letter argues the Pentagon's new coordination with DHS — detaining people on military property and handing them to ICE — turns bases into "traps" and creates a chilling effect on service members and their families, who "may avoid accessing bases, medical care, housing offices, or support services — or leave the military entirely." The signers set an August 23 deadline for answers. The Pentagon declined to comment and said it would reply directly to the authors. Two cases put faces on the numbers in the last week of August. On Monday, August 24, Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo — wife of Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, stationed at Fort Bliss — was deported to Honduras, at least the seventh military spouse or parent removed under the crackdown. She was detained July 11 outside a Walmart near the base; she had no known criminal record, and her appeal and military parole-in-place application were still pending. Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents El Paso, had opened a congressional inquiry into her case and visited her in detention. Two days earlier, in Key West, Border Patrol arrested Luis Manuel Aviles Roa, a Nicaraguan handyman of nearly 20 years' residence whose son Joshua is a sailor in his ninth month aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln — the carrier already at the center of a Senate inquiry over its record 250-day deployment. DHS has not disputed the pattern; it has defended it. "Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation's laws," the department said of the Aviles arrest, adding that "U.S. military service alone does not automatically grant lawful immigration status, or exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws." Republican chairmen of the Armed Services and Veterans' Affairs committees, Roger Wicker and Jerry Moran, did not respond to press requests for comment.

“My heart breaks for her, her children and the soldier who must feel so betrayed by the country he is sacrificing for. There are far too many families like theirs who are being targeted instead of supported.”

The Pentagon Publishes the Clinical Rules for Hegseth's Mandatory Testosterone Testing — and Pulls Them Down the Next Day — Seven Weeks After a Senator Who Lost Both Legs in Iraq Said the Program Sounded "Like Gender-Affirming Care to Me"

On September 2, 2026 the Pentagon posted a draft "Clinical Guidance for Health and Human Performance Optimization" implementing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's July order that every active-duty and reserve service member aged 30 and older be screened annually for testosterone deficiency, with separate screening pathways written for men and women. On September 3 the document and the accompanying statement from Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell were removed from the website. A U.S. official said the draft "has been temporarily rescinded to allow for updates," and that interim guidance remains in force — so the mandate itself stands while the clinical rules for carrying it out are rewritten. Hegseth announced the program on July 15, 2026, framing it as restoring rather than enhancing capability and calling it necessary for troops to operate at their "absolute best." Screening is mandatory at 30 and up and voluntary below it, with testosterone replacement therapy available to those who test low. No other military requires the screening absent a specific medical indication, and four of six physicians surveyed by Military Times said there was no solid evidence that universal screening at 30 would improve readiness. The Democratic reaction has run along two lines. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost both legs in Iraq, and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, an Air Force veteran, both pointed out that a government-funded hormone program for men sits awkwardly beside the same administration's ban on hormone therapy for transgender troops, and both asked why the screening does not extend to women in uniform given elevated infertility rates in the force. Houlahan called it the department's "latest culture-war obsession"; Sen. Mark Kelly, a Navy combat pilot, called the change simply "weird."