New US Navy Stealth Destroyer Named for Fallen SEAL Michael Monsoor

Though yet to be commissioned, the US Navy took delivery of its second Zumwalt Class stealth destroyer on April 23, 2018. The Navy is slated to have one more such destroyer in its fleet at a later date, down from the original order of 32.

The USS Monsoor is still officially under construction as it needs to have combat systems installed. These include weapons platforms, sensors, and the ship’s communication suite. Later, the destroyer will be equipped with SM-6 missiles, which are manufactured by Raytheon, a company in Sunnyvale, CA that specializes in military and cyber defense systems.

Raytheon states that the SM-6 missile is the only one which can be used to engage enemy aircraft and enemy ships in addition to acting as a projectile interceptor for ballistic missiles.

The projected full completion timeframe for the USS Monsoor is within the coming months. Official commissioning is to happen in 2020.

Michael Monsoor, US Navy SEAL (specialty: Combat Advisor and Automatic Weapons Gunner), died September 29, 2006, in Ramadi, Iraq, when he threw his body onto a live grenade to protect his teammates from the blast. He was the recipient of the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon and, posthumously, the Silver Star and the Medal of Honor.

During Monsoor’s funeral, Navy SEALs lined on both sides of the pallbearers’ route, with the coffin moving through the center; as the coffin passed, each SEAL As the coffin passed each SEA slapped down and embedded their own gold Trident into the wooden coffin.

This continued for nearly 30 minutes. Later, President George Bush, Sr. stated, “When it was over, the simple wooden coffin had become a gold-plated memorial to a hero who will never be forgotten.”