Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford, D-Ariz., miraculously survived a close-range head shot during an assassination attempt in 2011. As she rehabbed, Navy officials informed her that they would be naming a littoral combat ship in her honor.
Saturday, the Navy's combat ship Gabrielle Giffords will be commissioned at Galveston's Pier 21, in Texas, said the Houston Chronicle.
It is the 16th Navy ship named after a woman, and the first warship to be named after a living woman since 1857, when the cutter Harriet Lane was commissioned.
"That our Navy chose to give my name to this ship is an incredibly humbling honor — one I would never have imagined, one I will never forget, and one for which I always remain grateful," Giffords told the New York Times. "When we celebrate the commissioning this weekend, I will be thinking of the thousands of hardworking Americans who built this ship and the brave men and women who will serve aboard her."
According to the U.S. Navy, the ship is a fast, agile surface combatant, providing war fighting capabilities with the flexibility to operate close to shore, using mine, anti-submarine and surface warfare.
