The official Navy stances is that MSC personnel acted bravely. The unofficial US Navy stance...
NOT in the finest traditions of the Naval service.
I bet it's eating away at the navy guys for the media to be calling it a U.S Navy vessel rather than what it is... a civilian manned MSC ship.
Either way, I'd take a bunch of merchant sailors into contested waters long before I joined a US Navy ship. We may not be the Navy's "finest examples" but there is far less chance of my fellow merchant mariners doing something stupid!