Nice Honor.



Navy will name destroyer after fallen Long Island SEAL


BY OWEN MORITZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, May 9th 2008, 4:00 AM
Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy, of Patchogue, L.I., in undated photo.


For a Long Island SEAL, the ultimate sacrifice has led to the ultimate honor - a Navy warship will be named after him.
At a remarkable ceremony on Lake Ronkonkoma, Navy Secretary Donald Winter announced that a new destroyer will be dubbed the Lt. Michael Murphy to recall the Congressional Medal of Honor winner from Patchogue.
Once Navy warships were named after notable figures from history, Winter said, but selecting Murphy was "an opportunity to recognize this new generation of heroes."
The sailor's father, Dan Murphy - a Vietnam War hero who was awarded the Purple Heart - was in tears when he heard the tribute on Wednesday. It came on what would have been his son's 32nd birthday.
"It was obviously overwhelming," Murphy said.
As far as he's concerned, the ship will be known as "The Murph" when it's commissioned in 2011. "Years from now, young sailors will know who my son was when they sail on The Murph," he said.
In June 2005, Michael Murphy and three other members of the Navy's elite Sea, Air and Land force were ambushed by 100 Taliban warriors on a mountain ridge in Afghanistan.
Though outnumbered, Murphy and his comrades fought back furiously. Murphy and two other SEALs died in the firefight. A fourth was rescued by an Afghan herder.
Murphy, a graduate of Patchogue-Medford High School, was the first Navy SEAL since the Vietnam War to receive the Medal of Honor.
The Navy announced the ship's keel would be laid next year at a shipyard in Maine and that the Lt. Michael Murphy would be commissioned in 2011.