Commissioned in 1996, the Carney honors Admiral Robert B. 'Mick' Carney, who served as Chief of Naval Operations from 1953 to 1955 and helped define the Navy's Cold War posture. Carney served in every major Pacific theater of World War II, earning a Distinguished Service Medal for his leadership of destroyer forces in the island-hopping campaign. Forward-deployed to Rota, Spain, the Carney today serves as a ballistic missile defense platform in the eastern Atlantic.