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Today in Boobs

Navy Ship Named For Wounded U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords

by Jill Pantozzi | 12:55 pm, February 11th

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Gabrielle Giffords was elected to Congress three times and represented Arizona’s 8th congressional district. If you’re not familiar with her name strictly from politics, you may remember she was a victim of a shooting in Tuscon, Arizona in which six people were killed and 13 wounded last January. Giffords was one of the lucky survivors. Yesterday it was announced she would become the fourth women ever to have a Naval war ship named for her. 

Gifford received a gunshot wound to the head in the attack which was thought to be an assassination attempt against her. She had to go through intensive rehabilitation to recovered the ability to walk, speak, read, and write. Her husband, Mark Kelly, is a retired American astronaut, U.S. Navy captain and naval aviator. It’s that connection that made officials decide the naming honor would be hers. In a ceremony on Friday, they announced they would be christening a yet-to-be-built, 419-foot combat vessel, the USS Gabrielle Giffords.

“It is very rare for a warship to be named for a woman,” Capt. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for Navy Secretary Ray Mabus,told the Tuscon Citizen. “Since 1850, this is only the 16th ship to be named for a woman and the 13th to be named for a living person.” The USNS Amelia Earhart and the USNS Mary Sears are two examples but only three combat vessels were named for women. “The USS Hopper, for a pioneer in computer programming; the USS Higbee, for a famous nurse; and the USS Roosevelt, for Eleanor Roosevelt and her presidential husband.”

“During a Pentagon presentation, Mabus said he chose the vessel’s name as a tribute to the valor exemplified by Giffords and her astronaut husband, retired Navy Capt. Mark Kelly. The Navy also cited her commitment to military and veterans affairs and border security,” according to TC. “Mabus described Giffords as a woman who ‘has become synonymous for courage, who has inspired the nation with remarkable resiliency and showed the possibilities of the human spirit.’”

A rendering of what the ship will eventually look like was unveiled at the ceremony. “So-called Littoral Combat Ships typically navigate close to shore but are versatile enough to be deployed in deep water, the Navy said. They can hit speeds of 40 knots, or about 46 mph. Last year, a Littoral Combat Ship participated in four missions that captured nine smuggling suspects, seized more than 5 tons of cocaine and disabled two drug boats.”

“Roxanna Green, whose 9-year-old daughter, Christina-Taylor Green, died in the shooting, was named as the ship’s sponsor, a role that includes christening the vessel. She also attended the naming ceremony,” reports the paper.

Giffords officially resigned from Congress two weeks ago and is still recovering from the attack. The same day as the naming ceremony, President Obama signed into law the final bill authored by Giffords, legislation increasing the penalties for using ultra-light aircraft when smuggling drugs into the country.

(via Mother Jones, photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta)

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  • Anonymous

    …. 
    Mabus said he chose the vessel’s name as a tribute to the “valor” exemplified by Giffords …. 

    There goes another previously very fine and meaningfull word.

    “Valor” is now falling down when shot and lying on the ground, bleeding. 

    Pray and trust the woman gets as well as is possible — but “valor?” 

    And the name of a United States Navy ship? 

    Gag me. 

  • https://twitter.com/ZenPoseur ZenPoseur

    Dude, can you maybe leave your insipid political grudges at home when we’re talking about someone who’s been SHOT IN THE FUCKING HEAD?

  • Anonymous

    I’ve been SHOT IN THE FUCKING HEAD too-  It’s tough, and life altering, but I’m certainly not a hero, and it required no valor, and nothing was named for me……..

  • http://twitter.com/AlienReflection TheAlien

     Sooo, the fact that she spent hours upon hours of therapy with the 100% intention of returning to congress ASAP, regaining her speech and ability to walk so quickly and returning to the congress floor only 7 months after the shooting (and before she could speak well yet) to vote on a bill, DOESN’T COUNT AS VALOR? Definition of valor: Great courage in the face of danger, esp. in battle: “acts of valor”.
    Yes Brian. She does deserve the naming of the ship after her. And you’re an Ass.

  • Anonymous

    Brian Allen is right. Valor is action in the face of fear, where action is not required, and which benefits someone other than the actor. With all due respect, Giffords did nothing she did not have to do; she had no choice but to strive to survive; and, nothing she did benefitted others. ZenPoseur: you are a nitwit, or as Bill O’Riley whould call you, a pinhead.

  • https://twitter.com/ZenPoseur ZenPoseur

    Sock puppets don’t have heads.  Technically, you were shot in the toe stitching.

  • http://www.thenerdybird.com/ Jill Pantozzi

    How about continuing her work after SOMEONE TRIED TO ASSASSINATE HER FOR IT?

  • http://twitter.com/zaewen Zaewen

    Exactly, she was shot in the line of duty. She may not have been a soldier or other servicemember, but she was out there doing her job as a Congresswoman, a civil servant to the people of the US, and someone tried to assassinate her for it. And after fighting for her survival and pushing herself to recover as quickly as possible, she got back up and went back to her job for which someone tried to KILL her for doing. On top of all that, when she realized she was not yet ready for the position and still needed more time to recover, she gracefully stepped down so her constituents had the best possible representative for them in office. 

    She is the very definition of Valor, Courage, Grace, Determination, and what it means to serve your country no matter the cost.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/JPQKI7SBM674625O3YPXCYKCFY This is It

    It takes a lot of courage to stand up in public, speak out for what is right, and risk being killed.  Gabrielle Giffords is an American hero.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/JPQKI7SBM674625O3YPXCYKCFY This is It

    She’s continuing her work. Just in a different role.  Gabrielle Giffords is an American hero

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/JPQKI7SBM674625O3YPXCYKCFY This is It

    Gabrielle Giffords risks her life speaking out for what is right. She speaks out despite people like Palin who post maps with crosshairs over her district.  Gabby is an American hero.  I salute her valor.

  • Anonymous

    So, you’ve redefined “valor” as speaking out for what is right? If on the day she was shot, Giffords had know that a lunatic was going to be gunning down people, do you think she would have gone to make her speak anyway? Get real!

  • http://www.thenerdybird.com/ Jill Pantozzi

    So now you’re discussing theoretical valor? You can only judge on what she did, not what she or anyone else might have done.

  • Anonymous

    Notwithstanding my self-imposed — and usually 
    strictly so –   discipline of never directly responding to those whose descent into the ideologically-incited-hatred-driven ad hominem has highlighted only their own intellectual and other inadequacies — and that 
    FRANKDELAP (thank you, Sir) has in any case taken you to the wood shed — I will pray and trust you were looking squarely into the mirror and addressing both yourself and your Creator when you posted your pathetic political-grudge-driven insipid and asinine confirmation, only, of the efficacy of my ideas. 

    And thank you for having shared.

  • https://twitter.com/ZenPoseur ZenPoseur

    Uh, you do realize that we can see all of your other comments just by clicking on your profile pic, don’t you?  We can see at a glance that you’re a spiteful whack-job, so your brilliant “pretend to be opposed to ideologically-incited-hatred-driven ad hominem and thus claim the high ground” stratagem probably isn’t gonna work there, Sun Tsu.

    We can see exactly why you’re being such a dick about this, and it isn’t because you’re a brave champion of semantics, holding back the barbarian hordes who would dare use the word “valor” in a manner that you disapprove.

    It’s because Gabrielle Giffords has a D after her name.

    Ah, but you were THAT CLOSE to fooling us all!  Next time, champ.  Next time.

    P.S. Bless you for complimenting your own sock puppet.  That made me smile.

  • http://twitter.com/Chizwick Charlie

    Recovering from an injury is hardly something I’d say is worthy of naming a Navy ship after (or for that matter, worthy of celebrity status) especially when she probably had the best doctors and rehabilitation specialists that money could buy (being a US Rep AND the wife of a retired Astronaut). Why not name the ship after the six people who DIED in Tucson that day, or the other 13 who were injured? 

  • Frodo Baggins

    How awkward will it be when that ship gets fired on?

  • Anonymous

    Thank you, by your having with instinctive, lizard-brained rapidity, descended into the ad hominem, both confirmed the efficacy of my beyond-your-capacity-to-grasp ideas and, by having presented with a
    brace of its definitive symptoms: morbid Denial and pathological Projection; having confirmed that the Fascissocialist Psychosis underlies the cult-like Jim-Jones’ Left’s lock-step singing from the same (Socialist International) song book.

    Do you have a portable Hitler’s former-lackey-Soros-Issue TelePrompTer, too?

    Meanwhile I continue to wish Ms Giffords a speedy recovery and to pray and trust that she and all who were killed and injured by that day’s lunatic Leftard attack — and all of those they love and who love them — will know peace. And, your visceral reaction and subsequent verbalized bowel burblings notwithstanding, I’ll continue to assert that being shot while living on and buying re-election by giving away other people’s money and lying bleeding, is not “valor” — and further that the naming of a United States Naval vessel after Ms Giffords is not far short of an obscenity.

    An obscenity not dissimilar to the same “Democratic”
    potty-activist/political hack presently pretending to the secretary of the navy gig: Mississippi’s Mabus; seeking to call a naval vessel after the definitive corrupt crook and United States’ Military blood libeler: the execrable John P Murtha.

  • Victoria Moore

    I think they should have named the ship after the little girl… I do not minimize the incredible courage and tenacity it took for this woman to return to her position after such a life-threatening injury, but I think that naming the ship after a child who died senselessly because of arguments between adults that she probably couldn’t even begin to fathom would serve as much more poignant reminder of what we as an American people should be focusing on. That girl didn’t have to die because of a disagreement over political views.