USS Gabby Giffords set for maiden voyage
Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, NASA astronaut Capt. Mark Kelly, attended a Saturday ceremony in Texas Saturday to commission the Navy’s newest warship - the U.S.S. Gabrielle Giffords.
The Navy’s 10th Littoral Combat Ship is designed to operate in nearshore environments against threats such as mines, quiet diesel submarines and fast surface craft, according to a spokeswoman for Giffords.
Among the attendees at the Galveston ceremony were former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Second Lady Jill Biden and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Giffords remarked at the ceremony that having a naval ship with her namesake is an “incredible honor,” adding that the “USS Gabrielle Giffords is strong and tough, just like her crew.”
She added that she thought of the United States’ sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines during her “darkest days.”
Giffords was shot in the head in a 2011 assassination attempt at a Tucson event she was holding for constituents.
Six were killed and a dozen more were wounded.
Among the items that Giffords and Kelly placed in a box to be sealed below the ship’s mast were a Purple Heart medal that a citizen anonymously placed at the hospital where Giffords lay in a coma the day of the shooting, a patch of the American flag worn by Kelly during launch and re-rentry of Space Shuttle Endeavour, a Tucson Police Department coin, Giffords’ congressional identification card and an 1804 coin of the Virgin of Guadalupe
Giffords was notified that a naval warship would be named in her honor on Jan. 25, 2012 - the same day she resigned from Congress.
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus publicly announced the ship’s namesake in a February 2012 ceremony.
“It’s very appropriate that LCS 10 be named for someone who has become synonymous with courage, who has inspired the nation with remarkable resiliency, and shown the possibilities of the human spirit,” Mabus said.