Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

U.S. Navy Names Ship For Gabby Giffords

(JTA) — A United States Navy warship named for Gabby Giffords will be put to sea next week.

The ship will be officially named Gabrielle Giffords in honor of the Arizona Democratic congresswoman who survived a 2011 gunshot wound to the head. It will be the first Navy ship named after a living woman in 160 years.

The ceremony, which will take place in Galveston, Texas, will feature Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Joe Biden.

The vessel is a 418-foot combat ship bearing machine guns and missiles, according to The New York Times. Below the mast, a box will hold an American flag patch that Giffords’ husband Mark Kelly, a retired astronaut, wore on his spacesuit; a purple heart left at the hospital where Giffords was treated for the gunshot wound; her congressional identification; and a 19th-century coin.

“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 said, according to the 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.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.