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USNS Seay (T-AKR 302)

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USNS SEAY is the third BOB HOPE - class large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off ship (LMSR) and the first ship in the Navy named after Army Sgt. William W. Seay. The USNS SEAY is operated by Patriot Contracting Services.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USNS SEAY. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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About the Ship's Name:

USNS SEAY is named in honor of U.S. Army Sgt. William W. Seay (1948-1968), a native of Brewton, Ala., who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his gallantry in action at the cost of his own life in Vietnam on Aug. 25, 1968.

Citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sgt. Seay distinguished himself while serving as a driver with the 62d Transportation Company, on a resupply mission. The convoy with which he was traveling, carrying critically needed ammunition and supplies from Long Binh to Tay Ninh, was ambushed by a reinforced battalion of the North Vietnamese Army. As the main elements of the convoy entered the ambush killing zone, they were struck by intense rocket, machinegun and automatic weapon fire from the well concealed and entrenched enemy force. When his convoy was forced to stop, Sgt. Seay immediately dismounted and took a defensive position behind the wheels of a vehicle loaded with high-explosive ammunition. As the violent North Vietnamese assault approached to within 10 meters of the road, Sgt. Seay opened fire, killing 2 of the enemy. He then spotted a sniper in a tree approximately 75 meters to his front and killed him. When an enemy grenade was thrown under an ammunition trailer near his position, without regard for his own safety he left his protective cover, exposing himself to intense enemy fire, picked up the grenade, and threw it back to the North Vietnamese position, killing 4 more of the enemy and saving the lives of the men around him. Another enemy grenade landed approximately 3 meters from Sgt. Seay's position. Again Sgt. Seay left his covered position and threw the armed grenade back upon the assaulting enemy. After returning to his position he was painfully wounded in the right wrist; however, Sgt. Seay continued to give encouragement and direction to his fellow soldiers. After moving to the relative cover of a shallow ditch, he detected 3 enemy soldiers who had penetrated the position and were preparing to fire on his comrades. Although weak from loss of blood and with his right hand immobilized, Sgt. Seay stood up and fired his rifle with his left hand, killing all 3 and saving the lives of the other men in his location. As a result of his heroic action, Sgt. Seay was mortally wounded by a sniper's bullet. Sgt. Seay, by his gallantry in action at the cost of his life, has reflected great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

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USNS SEAY History:

USNS SEAY is a U.S. Military Sealift Command (MSC) large, medium-speed roll-on/roll-off (LMSR) vehicle cargo ship, built to move heavy ground equipment quickly and in volume and to support afloat prepositioning concepts that gained added urgency after the 1990-1991 Gulf War highlighted how decisive strategic sealift is for rapid power projection. The ship's construction was part of the U.S. Navy's 1990s effort to field fast, high-capacity sealift platforms able to deliver armored and wheeled forces (and their sustainment) on compressed timelines, including to regions where port infrastructure might be limited or damaged.

On September 27, 1994, the contract for the ship was awarded as part of the LMSR new-construction program at Avondale in New Orleans, Louisiana. The keel was laid on March 24, 1997. On June 20, 1998, the ship was christened USNS SEAY at Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans, and she was launched shortly afterward on June 25, 1998. The naming honored U.S. Army Sgt. William W. Seay, a Medal of Honor recipient, reflecting the program's theme of recognizing service members while building ships intended to carry Army and Marine Corps equipment at scale. After completion and fitting-out, the ship was delivered to MSC and entered non-commissioned U.S. Navy service on March 28, 2000 - marking the practical "transition" from shipbuilder custody into the Navy's auxiliary fleet under MSC operational control (civil-mariner operated, missioned for sealift and prepositioning tasks rather than commissioned warship service).

By the early years of the post-9/11 era, SEAY was being used in the heavy-equipment delivery role for which the LMSRs were designed. In May 2003, after a voyage tied to the Iraq War build-up and sustainment phase, SEAY returned to Norfolk following the movement of 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment equipment - loaded after the regiment staged cargo through Beaumont, Texas, and carried onward to Kuwait as part of the sealift pipeline supporting forces in the U.S. Central Command area.

A clear, dated illustration of SEAY's expeditionary logistics function came during Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) training off North Carolina. In reduced operating status in Baltimore when not tasked - configured to get underway rapidly when ordered - SEAY departed Baltimore on June 15, 2009, steamed to the Camp Lejeune area, and operated as a sea base during the exercise. On June 17, 2009, her cargo included hundreds of vehicles and thousands of tons of equipment. The offload was executed using ship-to-shore methods (including causeway/ferry and lighterage concepts) that are essential when a deep-water pier is unavailable. JLOTS activity concluded on June 20, 2009. SEAY then returned to Norfolk and subsequently back to Baltimore, underscoring how these ships cycle between readiness posture and short-notice tasking.

Over the next decade, SEAY appears repeatedly in public releases tied to maritime prepositioning and expeditionary offload capability. On August 13, 2014, Marines conducted ship-to-shore proficiency training using SEAY at Blount Island in Jacksonville, Florida - an example of how maritime prepositioning ships are integrated into rehearsals that connect afloat equipment to operational units ashore. In January 2018, SEAY was documented in a sequence of events during Exercise NATIVE FURY 18 in Saudi Arabia: she arrived at Yanbu Commercial Port on January 17, 2018; photographs and official captions show maritime causeway and aircraft activity associated with the offload and integration process on January 18 and January 25, 2018; and heavy-equipment offload activity was documented again on January 30, 2018. These events reflected the exercise's purpose: practicing the rapid offload and assembly of a Marine Air-Ground Task Force using forward-deployed maritime prepositioning ships.

In the lead-up to NATIVE FURY 2020, SEAY was again publicly tied to expeditionary cargo-handling preparation. On November 11, 2019, at Diego Garcia (British Indian Ocean Territory), U.S. Navy imagery documented SEAY conducting an Improved Navy Lighterage System (INLS) training mission with participating Navy cargo-handling and amphibious support units, explicitly framed as preparation for the upcoming joint cargo-handling exercise. That preparation flowed into NATIVE FURY 2020 activity. On March 14, 2020, MSC imagery placed SEAY in the Arabian Gulf during Exercise NATIVE FURY 20, continuing the pattern of prepositioning-oriented operations in the Central Command region. In 2021, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command public affairs described SEAY as part of Maritime Prepositioning Ship Squadron Two, emphasizing her role in carrying afloat prepositioned cargo to support rapid response in the Indo-Pacific. MSC reporting from the same general period also credited SEAY with supporting a site survey in Norway, consistent with the fleet's broader mission of enabling prepositioning and reception planning in multiple theaters.

In 2022, SEAY was again documented at the center of NATIVE FURY - this time NATIVE FURY 22 - at Yanbu Commercial Port, Saudi Arabia. Official captions show SEAY pulling into Yanbu on August 3, 2022, to execute a maritime prepositioning force offload and related reception, staging, onward movement, and integration (RSO&I) tasks. Subsequent imagery in late August 2022 documented equipment movement associated with the exercise, including vehicles being driven aboard SEAY on August 26, 2022, and assault amphibian vehicles being loaded on August 29, 2022. Public photos from September 1, 2022, continued to place SEAY as the focal platform for exercise leadership and the MPF logistics effort at Yanbu.

The most recent clearly dated public milestone in open releases illustrates SEAY's continuing role in the U.S. Marine Corps maritime prepositioning enterprise. On April 23, 2025, at Marine Corps Support Facility Blount Island (Jacksonville, Florida), personnel rapidly offloaded SEAY - reportedly completing the offload in under 12 hours and moving more than 400 pieces of rolling stock - so the ship's equipment set could enter the Maritime Prepositioning Force Maintenance Cycle (MMC). The published account emphasized that MMC is a routine process to maintain and replenish the equipment carried aboard maritime prepositioning ships, typically lasting roughly six weeks per ship, and it framed the speed of the offload as directly supporting global readiness for contingency response (from major conflict to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief).

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USNS SEAY Image Gallery:

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